


Assembly

by Deannie



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen, Origin Story, Supermagnificent AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-25 18:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 57,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6205438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven very <i>different</i> men meet in a town called Four Corners. Can they come together and use their talents to save an Indian village? And what will happen if they do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story in the Magnificent Seven Super AU (I know, the title lacks pizzazz, but it's descriptive!), wherein the boys are themselves as seen on the show, except for that part where they're all super. Like, Captain America, Dr. Strange type super.
> 
> THIS IS AN OPEN AU, meaning if you'd like to write a story in it, dear God, I'd love to read it. The bible will be posted soon, and I have no plans for the universe beyond this fic, so anything goes! All I ask is that you tag them Super AU, so that I can shamelessly enjoy them!
> 
> Blame the whole thing on Randi, by the way. She's the one who wanted superheroes for Christmas.

Chris Larabee rode into the town of Four Corners with little expectation of anything but a hot meal, a warm bed, and a bitter whiskey. Not necessarily in that order.

Honestly, he didn’t expect much of any place or any day anymore—a bitch of a thing, since he was likely to see too damn many of both of them before he was through. Damn sight different from when he was begging not to die down in Texas.

There were times he wished he had, times he wished he'd never met that crazy German doctor they'd brought in to save him, times he wished the concoctions he’d been fed had killed him. He'd made his deathbed deal with the devil, though, and now he had to live with it. The United States had thought they needed a miracle during their war with Mexico and Chris had been too young and stupid not to realize what a curse living forever was really going to be.

A super soldier. That was what Erskine had said. Chris would be faster and stronger and smarter. He’d live longer, heal quicker, and take more punishment. That last part was true, at least.

They’d won the war, after a fashion, but Erskine and his whole team were dead now, killed in the next war—the war the States fought amongst themselves. The government, in their infinite wisdom, had disavowed all knowledge of the program once Lincoln had been killed. Soldier X had supposedly perished in Charleston in one of the final campaigns of that war (and it hadn't been far from the truth), and Chris had seen too much by then. He took the chance to just disappear. And he’d met Sarah and they’d married and Adam had been born. He started to think, maybe, he could live a real life again. A normal life.

But that was then. Today, alone as he had been for the past three years, Chris settled his hat more firmly on his head and made his way toward the first clean-looking saloon he saw. He needed a drink in the worst way.

“Please!” The woman’s voice was high and scared, but steel ran through it. “You can’t! He was only trying to help!”

Chris turned to watch the commotion at the other end of town. A black man, tall but bent under an exhaustion and fear that Chris knew better than he wanted to, was being dragged down the street toward the graveyard by six men who looked to be ranch hands. All of them were drunk, and half of them were shooting into the air for God knew what dumbass purpose.

“Darky freak, playing at being a doctor!” one of the men called. “We’ll show ‘em what we do to the likes of you. Ain’t no darky doctors, and there never will be!”

“There wasn't any way to save him!” the black man pleaded. A righteous sense of power and anger suffused the seemingly cowed words. “Your boss was too far gone when he got here. If I’d seen him just a day or two sooner—”

A rifle shot stopped the proceedings, and Chris stepped up onto the boardwalk in front of the saloon to see a bit better. A woman with white-blond hair and shining eyes stood in front of the lynch mob, a Spencer carbine in her hands. “You can’t do this,” she said, her voice the same one that had captured Chris’s attention in the first place. “Nathan didn’t kill your boss. Gangrene did.”

One of the men pointed his gun at her and Chris braced himself to move, but the gunman suddenly stumbled hard, as if shoved from behind. His gun flew out of his hand to the laughter of his friends, and the cowhand whirled on the black man—Nathan, Chris assumed—and slammed an elbow into his face. Chris wasn’t sure what had just happened, but he was damn sure Nathan hadn’t been the one to push him. “Try anything more, and you’re dead, you hear me?”

One of the others grabbed the woman’s rifle and shoved her out of the way, then dropped a rough noose over Nathan’s head, leering into the black man’s face. “He’s dead anyway.”

Chris sighed. This was not his problem. Not any more. He’d played the hero before and all it got him was death and pain and he wasn’t doing it again.

“STOP THEM!” The woman’s angry shout did something to his insides anyway. She’d pulled herself to her feet and, now unarmed, was following the procession toward the graveyard. “God, what is wrong with you people!?”

Damn it.

Chris looked away and his eyes locked with a pair of angry blue ones across the street. A young man stood just outside the grocer’s with a broom in his hand, his brown hair shaggy and rough, his long buckskin coat out of place in the heat of the day. The man needed to do something. His eyes pleaded for help.

 _Damn_ it.

Gritting his teeth, Chris nodded to him, watched the man nod back, then kept an ear trained in that direction while he walked on toward the chaos, his enhanced hearing picking up the words clearly.

“You walk off with that rifle and you’re fired, son,” the shopkeeper said.

Chris smiled at the response. “Hell. I’m probably going to get myself killed, and now I got to worry about a new job, too.” The young man’s voice was light and amused with an easy Texas twang.

Chris could smell him coming, a scent like hawks and buffalo. Not unpleasant, but a sign that the senses that Erskine’s formula had heightened—senses he’d long since learned to ignore—were being reawakened now in an instant. He cursed them, but he couldn’t deny there was a thrill to being alive like this again. The young man moved a little faster to catch up, and the two of them faced the lynch mob, side by side.

The mob had Nathan standing, bound hand and foot, on an upended log, the noose over a tree limb and tight around his neck with all guns trained on him. A coffin was propped up nearby, a newly dead corpse standing at obscene attention. The stagecoach that had raced into town minutes ago dropped its passenger like a sack of crap and raced right on out again. Seemed like no one wanted to be in Four Corners for long. If this was a normal day, Chris could understand why.

“Thought you might like to see your killer swing, Mr. Fallon,” the head of the mob told the corpse. Chris cocked his pistols loudly to get their attention. “Who the hell are you?” the leader demanded angrily.

“Cut him loose,” Chris told him. Didn’t think he was being in the least unclear.

Half the guns found their aim suddenly on him and he calculated his shots rapidly. He could take down two of the six—maybe three—before the first one got a shot off. Not great odds, but he’d had worse.

A rifle cocked next to him and that light, amused Texas drawl sounded loud in the silence of the stand off. “Reckon you’d all be happier if you just rode away.” The young man would certainly narrow the odds a bit more, from the easy stance he took.

The leader snorted and Chris zeroed in on the man's finger as it tightened on the trigger. "Like hell."

The ranch hand fired just after Chris's bullet left his own gun. Chris's shot ended the man's life, while the dead man's went wide.

The rest of the men looked just a bit less righteous, all of a sudden.

“You shot a lot of holes in the clouds back there,” Chris reminded them. “Anybody stop to reload?”

One of the idiots growled a curse and opened fire—the rest followed like sheep.

The long-haired man at Chris’s side held his own nicely, but the woman's piercing shriek of "Nathan!" had Chris refocusing his attention. One of the remaining ranch hands had knocked the stump out from under Nathan's feet and the man was swinging in the wind, bound hands grabbing uselessly at the noose that was killing him.

Chris's companion was on it—two quick, accurate shots rang out, one of them hitting the man who'd kicked the stump, the other severing the rope and dropping the tall black man to the ground. Nathan reached down to his boot and pulled out a knife, so Chris figured he could get his own self free.

His attention snapped back to the fight a second too late, and he felt a bullet plow into his side and out his back. Damn, that was going be a bitch. He held in his reaction and watched the man who’d shot him fall from a knife in the back. Chris looked over at Nathan, nodding his thanks for the throw.

The last of the ranch hands had had it and ran for the open desert. Chris was content to let him go and clearly, so was the Texan. But a short blur of enthusiasm darted in front of them and brandished a gun. With speed that he hoped no one noticed, Chris slapped the pistol out of the boy's grasp, but not before he got off a shot. The bullet’s flight must have been knocked off by Chris’s move, as the ranch hand kept running.

"Never shoot a man in the back, boy!" He growled.

The kid, black hair long and greasy and eyes deep and earnest, looked cowed and slunk off, his pistol back in his hand. Who the hell had given that kid a gun in the first place?

Chris looked at the man beside him, who was watching Nathan pull himself to his feet and rip the noose from his neck. It had left some evil-looking burns.

The few idiots still moving in the graveyard were getting themselves together to slink off. Chris and his new friend kept their guns trained on them, and the sorry remnants of the mob left their firearms and their dead where they'd fallen.

"Name’s Chris," he introduced himself to the Texan.

"Vin," the man replied. “New in town?”

Chris smirked. “Pretty much just now. You?”

Vin shrugged, the coat pulling strangely around his shoulders. “Last week.”

“Buffalo hunter?” Chris asked. Sure smelled like a buffalo hunter. But with that weird raptor scent underneath.

Vin snorted at that. “Among other things. Ain’t many left to hunt.”

Nathan and the woman both walked up. Nathan was much taller than he'd seemed while bowed under the threat of the mob, but he looked exhausted and gray. "Want to thank you both," he said quietly, voice rough from the noose. "Didn't think no one'd do anything."

"My name is Mary Travis," the woman butted in, sounding put together and educated. “Where did you come from?”

Chris didn’t grin, but he wanted to. She sounded so officious, like the ladies who worked in the government medical facility. “Saloon,” he answered shortly, walking away from her.

“Wait!” she called in confusion. “Where are you going?”

Chris did smile when Vin and Nathan joined him in his walk and replied as he did: “Saloon.”

******

Nathan took a deep breath and drained his shot glass, feeling the whiskey burn down his tender throat. Damn it. There was a hell of an irony to the fact that he’d spent all last night working on healing a dying man and he couldn’t even heal himself.

The men who had introduced themselves as Chris Larabee and Vin Tanner stood beside him at the bar and he almost laughed. A couple of white men saving a black man. Maybe Josiah was right after all. Maybe one day, people’d forget that color meant anything at all.

Tanner looked Larabee up and down with a strange suspicion. “Nathan, you’re a doctor?”

“Ain’t no darky doctors, didn’t you hear?” he replied bitterly. “I used to be a stretcher bearer for the Union army. Helped out in the field hospitals and picked up what I could.” He left it at that—they may have saved his life, but he didn’t know the first thing about them, and his secrets could easily have him strung up all over again.

“Figure my friend here could use your skills,” Tanner said pointedly, catching and holding Larabee’s gaze.

Larabee shrugged. “It’s nothing.” Nathan looked him up and down. He was favoring his left side a little, but stood tall.

“Excuse me.” A deep, slow voice with an Indian lilt to it interrupted them. The three of them turned as one and came face to face with a man Nathan knew was Tastanagi, the chief of the Seminole village down the valley—he came into town now and again for supplies and such. The healer didn’t know him to speak to and he didn’t recognize the black man with him, but he nodded a silent greeting all the same.

“We have seen what you have done,” Tastanagi said, holding out his hand and showing them a crudely worked golden pendant bigger than any Nathan’d ever seen. “We wish to hire you.”

Nathan shrugged minutely as Larabee looked at him, and Tanner did the same. Larabee took the pendant and handed it to the bartender—bartenders being surprisingly good at gauging worth as a general rule.

He handed it back after a moment. “Maybe $35.” Sounded generous to Nathan.

“Hire us for what?” Larabee asked.

“Our village is set upon by ghosts… of a very human variety.” Sounded ominous.

But Tanner just nodded. “How many ghosts are there?”

The Indian had to consider his answer, which was never a good sign. “Would 20 men frighten you?”

Larabee smirked. “Ain’t much frightens me anymore.”

“Hell, I was making five dollars a week at the hardware store without anybody shooting at me,” Tanner countered lightly, but not like he was rejecting the call for help. Seemed like the man took _everything_ lightly, or at least with a fair amount of humor.

Larabee nodded as Nathan did. “Assume we pay five dollars a head that gets us all of seven men.”

“The Seminoles put themselves on the line for many an escaped slave,” Nathan replied, locking eyes with Tastanagi. “They took us in when nobody else would. For five dollars, they can have a week of my life.”

“Or all of it,” Tanner shot back with a smile. He finished off his whiskey and sighed. “Hell... I wasn't planning on dying with a broom in my hand anyway.”

Larabee held out his hand and shook with Tastanagi. “All right. Tomorrow afternoon, then.”

They all turned back around as the two villagers left, and Chris gestured for another whiskey.

“If they're asking for help from the white man they're desperate,” Tanner said. “How are we going to find hired guns for five dollars?”

Nathan sipped his whiskey. Seven men, huh? He wondered what Josiah would say about that: he was always spouting predictions and portents. Seven brothers, seven winds and what have you. Speaking of… “I think I know a man who can help.” If they were open to his kind of help, that is. Josiah was… Hell, sometimes, Josiah was downright scary.

Larabee slammed back his second shot and winced. Tanner was right—something was off about the blond. “I know one, too,” the blond man said with a smirk, turning a mite awkwardly to look out the door after seeing something in the mirror above them. “If we can get him out of bed.”

“First, I think I might should look at you for a minute,” Nathan put in. He wasn’t up to any real healing right now, but he could at least figure out what the man’d done to himself and patch him up. “Seems like you might not have come out that fight without a hurt.”

Chris shrugged. “It’s nothing,” he repeated.

Tanner snorted. “Get your ass up to the man’s clinic and get whatever it is looked at,” he commanded good-naturedly.

Surprisingly enough, Larabee nodded in resignation and gestured for Nathan to lead the way. He was breathing a little hard by the time they entered the clinic above the livery, but he didn’t seem in too much distress.

“Why don’t you take off your coat,” Nathan said, turning to his table of bandages and such. “Feel free to do the same, Vin. I know it’s hot up here. You must be boiling in that getup of yours.”

“Doing fine, Nathan, thanks,” Vin said from behind him. His voice changed to concern that had Nathan spinning back around quickly. “Damn, Chris! You figured to just walk around like that?!”

Larabee had been shot. Blood glistened against his black clothing, now that it wasn’t hidden by his duster.

“Take off your shirt,” Nathan ordered him angrily. Damn it! “This ain’t something you can just ignore. What the hell were you thinking?” Nathan examined the damage. The bullet had gone in his flank and exited out his back, tunneling through skin and fat and not much else. A simple wound and barely more than a graze, all told, but it was weird. The wound was partially healed already.

“When’d you get this?” he asked, unsure, as he turned to get his carbolic and some bandages. The wound was clean and maybe a couple of days old. Hadn’t been stitched, though, and Nathan wondered whether he’d even seen a doctor for it. “Should’ve had this stitched up when it happened,” he scolded. “It opened up during the fight, huh?”

“Just bandage me up,” Chris said dully, shooting Vin a glare. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

There was something… familiar… about the man’s defensiveness. And now Nathan was close up, there was no denying the faint acrid smell of burning that flesh made when a bullet went through it. Trusting his instincts, he reached out and touched the skin around the entry wound. He didn’t have a lot of energy to spend, but he funneled some into healing the red and oozing skin.

Larabee flinched back hard a second before relaxing and giving him a considering look. He gently removed Nathan’s hand from his side.

A normal person never would have even felt that. Amazing as it seemed, that wound was fresh, and Larrabee was someone like Nathan himself. Different. “You always been so quick to heal?” he asked carefully.

Chris ignored the question. “Knew a woman back in the war. Peg. She was like magic.” Nathan was caught in those sharp eyes, pinned like a butterfly by the suspicious voice. “She could just touch you and whatever hurt you had, seemed almost to disappear.”

Nathan broke the gaze and flicked a look at Vin, who stood still and watching, his face showing nothing. “Is that so?” Nathan asked quietly, grabbing a wad of cotton and soaking it in carbolic to clean the wound that probably wouldn’t even need wrapping in a week or so. “Must’ve been helpful when the wounded came home.”

“She was a war nurse. Figured she’d be more helpful in the field,” Chris replied. “I reckon you know just how that is, don’t you?”

Nathan smiled at the subtle accusation. He wondered if Tanner had the least clue what they were talking about. “Like I said, I helped out when I could.” He wrapped a bandage around Chris’s midsection nice and tight and tied it off. “That should keep you till it’s healed. Shouldn’t take long.”

Larabee snorted and glared again at Vin. “Now we’re finished babying me, can we get to having some fun?”

Vin smirked. “Well, hell, I’m all for that.”

“I think I’ll stay here,” Nathan said, looking around at the mess those idiots had made of his clinic when their boss died. “Clean up some.” And God, but he needed to rest and recover.

“Get some sleep, while you’re at it,” Chris told him seriously, again with that look in his eyes, that easy acceptance. “I hear being a healer takes an awful lot out of you.”

Nathan nodded his understanding and smiled as Vin tipped his hat in farewell.

What was it Josiah had been spouting just a couple of weeks ago? “Where those who are exceptional meet, there home will be for all?”

Well, Nathan didn’t know about home exactly, but it was nice knowing there was someone nearby who knew what it was like to be this different.

******

Buck Wilmington was eight years old before he figured out he could feel feelings that weren’t his own. Miss Petunia, one of the women in his mama’s house, had a baby and the baby died. But sad as the ever-sensitive “Young Buck” had been about it, he knew with frightening clarity that the overwhelming hole of grief he felt in the dark of the night three days after the baby passed was Miss Petunia’s, and not his.

He’d run into her room and hugged her tight and promised they’d make it all right for her somehow, and Petunia had put down the knife in her hands and gathered him to her and cried.

He’d always been good at going with his instincts, at reading people. And he learned, as he grew, to give people a little of what they were missing, be it a hug or a friendly ear to listen, to help them remember what they needed. He never told his mama about his gift, but she’d said to him on more than one occasion that God had obviously blessed him with a giving heart.

When he hit puberty, he figured out a much more satisfying way to put that blessing to use than just assuring that those around had smiles on their faces. And he found out that there was something… _perfect_... about the emotions of a woman in love.

And something damn fine about a lady in lust, too.

This particular lady’s name was Betty, and she was lovely and lonely and needed a bit of attention that Buck was only too happy to give her. He’d spent the last month on the trail and had sauntered into Four Corners for no very good reason that he could see at first. He’d been headed back to Eagle Bend, where he always ended up, despite the pain it brought, but something had turned him east toward this little dust spot.

And Betty had been waiting in the saloon. Buck savored every bit of lust and happiness coming off of her as he’d courted her, and now they stretched out on her narrow bed. She was blonde and buxom and soft with a sweet smile and her own giving heart. Her desire washed out toward him in waves, and he lowered his face to hers to—

 **BANG. BANG. BANG.** “Hey! You in there with my wife?!”

Buck shot up to sitting at the ruckus. The man on the other side of the door was… Well, he was hard to read, but the words kind of spoke for themselves.

And so did the woman’s sudden worry. “Oh, Lord, it's got to be my Billy,” she said, a tired dread welling up from her.

“I thought he was in Yuma prison,” Buck said, trying to gather up his things, right glad he hadn’t started toward the good bits and finished undressing.

He almost didn’t want to leave her to the man, though. She felt sad and resigned—her Billy didn’t treat her right, it was plain to feel. “Oh, he is,” she said, throwing his hat at him. “He was.” She shoved his pants into his hand, a spark of her worry for him warming his heart even as he headed for the window in his union suit. “Go!”

He nearly didn’t, as the door shook again. What the hell was it about her husband? A weird blend of mischief and fettered animal lashed out at Buck from the man… Dangerous and confusing...

“Just a minute, hon,” Betty called, struggling into her dressing gown and waving Buck frantically toward the window.

“I hear you in there!” Billy yelled. No anger at Betty—least not that Buck could tell. “Open this door!”

It was weird—there was a controlled kind of mayhem about Billy. Truly angry people were usually a lot easier to read. Which meant maybe this angry husband was more dangerous than most he had to deal with.

“I got to go,” he told Betty, lunging over to give her one more long, lingering kiss.

“I'm gonna get you!” Billy yelled. Buck headed out the window before the door burst open and tried to make his way to the next room across the slippery roof. He cursed as his feet went out from under him and he slid, finding himself abruptly ass-down in the horse trough outside the boarding house. He closed his eyes a minute to recover from all the excitement.

“Afternoon, Buck. Interrupt something?”

A wave of amusement and affection that was so damn familiar it hurt washed over him, soaking him better than the tepid water had. The horrible self-hate and crushing guilt he’d felt last time he’d been near this particular soul were tempered now, and though the connection that had once had Buck nearly reading this man’s thoughts was still dulled, his heart leapt to know it wasn’t truly broken.

“Chris,” he whispered, opening his eyes and dragging himself out of the trough, feeling the amusement more strongly as his best damn friend in the whole world grabbed his hand. Buck gained his feet on the boardwalk and enveloped Chris Larabee in a massive hug.

Something was wonderfully different. He felt the usual endless pain in his friend, but there was a glimmer of something… shiny... as well. “Hey, you old war dog!” he said louder. “Good to see you.” He’d honestly worried, after Parkerstown, that he’d never see Chris alive again.

Chris patted him on the back, which was more physical affection than he usually showed. “Easy, big fella,” he grumbled gently, his good-natured embarrassment bleeding off of him. “Folks will talk.”

Buck broke the embrace and couldn’t help the laughter bubbling up in him. Things were sure as hell looking up in the world!

“Got a job,” Chris told him, still looking around. Always keeping an eye out. “You interested?”

“Yeah.” Buck didn’t even take a second to consider. Chris wasn’t mad. He wasn’t drunk. He was curious and keen and _Chris_ for once in recent history. “What's it pay?”

Chris looked him dead in the eyes. “Five dollars.”

“A day?” Chris mentally shrugged and Buck shook his head. “A week!?”

The mental shrug was followed by a physical one. “I know it ain't much.”

But it was something. “How are the odds?” Buck asked. Not that it really mattered.

“Three…” Chris corrected himself. “ _Four._ To one.”

Buck slapped him on the back. “It's just our kind of fight,” he replied, as if there’d been any question about him following where Chris would lead. Something bright and amused—like Chris’s new shiny—was headed toward them, and Buck turned to see who was coming. “How'd you know I was here?” he asked.

“I make a point of knowing who's in town,” Chris said. “Live longer that way.” He snorted. “And I saw you heading down here with your girl. Hoped maybe we’d get to you before you got too involved.”

Buck nodded, not really listening. They both watched the man in buckskins approach. The man at Betty’s door. He wasn’t Billy, obviously, and Buck hoped he hadn’t scared the poor girl too much with his controlled mayhem.

“He with us?” Mayhem asked, a blithe smile on his tanned face as he took up a position behind Chris’s left shoulder. His hair was long, his clothing Injun, and his mind… Something Buck had never felt before. Everything was a game and it was all deadly serious. Tragic in the most optimistic way…

“Is he with you?” he asked Chris, thought he could see the truth of that by the feeling of belonging that united the two men. He didn’t know who the man was, nor quite whether he could be trusted, but he and Chris were bound together anyway. Buck’d just have to come along for the ride. “There going to be ladies where you're going?” he asked, oozing that lust he never did let go of.

Chris grinned a grin Buck hadn’t seen in a year at least. “I imagine so.”

“Well then, imagine I'm in,” he replied with a randy smile of his own. He stuck out his hand to Mayhem. “Buck Wilmington,” he offered.

“Vin,” the man returned. They clasped hands and Buck’s read on the man got even more complex. He was hunted. Feared. Terrified, amused, saddened, alone, thrilled by every minute, excited by any chase…. Air lifted him up, wheeling him northward—

“People really will talk, Buck,” Chris said, that rough bite to his voice that could always call Buck back when he went too deep in search of answers. With Chris missing in every useful way since Sarah and Adam died, Buck hadn’t gone deep in a very long time. Might be he was a little out of practice.

He let go of Vin’s hand and cleared his throat, looking down at himself to prevent Vin from seeing the disquiet in his eyes. “Should probably get dressed in something… drier. Huh?” he asked, his gaze lifting and boring holes into Chris’s skull. What the hell had his friend gotten involved in here?

“Reckon you should,” Chris agreed, ignoring his glare. “There’s a clinic, up above the livery. Figure we meet there around dinner time.” He looked Buck over with a twist of a smirk. “You might think about a bath first.”

Buck just frowned, as Chris and his damn perplexing friend walked off.

******

Josiah Sanchez wasn’t surprised to see Nathan and the others approach. The crows and his dreams had given him their forms: the soldier, the empath, the hunter, the healer... He knew the wave was coming—the cresting of power that would be centered in this tiny town, bringing hope and justice and what have you—he just didn’t care. He bent to his work again, placing fallen stone on fallen stone. Rebuilding the Kingdom of Heaven that he had plundered in his youth.

“Afternoon, Josiah,” Nathan called out. His throat was raw-sounding, and Josiah looked up to see the imprint of a rope there. He held his anger in check. He was done with retribution. The young black man dismounted and walked onto the hallowed ground, hat in his hands in a way that always made Josiah smile bitterly.

The child was right to be a little bit afraid.

“There’s word the Seminole village down the way’s been having some trouble with raiders and such.” His hat was slightly crushed now. “I was thinking—”

“No.”

Josiah glanced at the overwhelming power of the bonds between these men, strands of gold and silver that only the cursed could see, and he turned back to his stones.

Nathan’s voice dropped and he walked closer, imparting secrets Josiah had already seen in a vision more than two weeks ago. “Remember your talk about exceptional men?” he whispered. “Reckon we got another one here. He’s eager to help them, and I thought—”

“Then go help them, Nathan,” Josiah said. “I’ll stay here and do my penance.” It would never be enough, he knew. Nothing could make him unlearn the secrets he had pursued with such ignorance and nothing could undo the havoc he had wrought as a result.

The universe might be calling him to become a part of its machinations, but God had punished him for his hubris once already. He wouldn’t presume against the Almighty again.

Nathan felt the wave coming, too, even if he didn’t understand it, and he tried once more. “I was hoping—”

“Keep hoping, my friend,” Josiah said, in that flat and final tone he knew Nathan had learned to respect. “I’ll still be here building.”

Stone on stone...

With unwilling ears, he listened as his young friend returned to the others. The tarnished silver strands that connected him to Nathan were old friends, easily accommodated, even ignored if need be.

“He says he's not coming,” Nathan told them, all cautious frustration. “He said that's his penance.”

“For what?” the soldier wanted to know.

 _For her…_ An image of Hannah, soft and innocent, mocked him and Josiah slammed down the stone in his hand with more force than necessary.

“He won't say,” Nathan replied. “Word is he done killed a lot of men. He's a hard man to persuade.”

The Devil had persuaded him with ease, though, hadn’t he? Perhaps he was finally learning from his mistakes.

“Could be useful in a fight,” said the hunter. Josiah grinned ferally to himself. Oh, he’d be that, all right. If he cared.

“The Seminoles are the dispossessed of the earth, Josiah,” Nathan tried again, spurred by this thing among the four of them. “Ain't saving lives a part of saving souls?”

 _You don’t save lives, Josiah Sanchez,_ the demons in his mind reminded him. _You take them. Twist them. Ruin them._

Not anymore. “Seems to me a man ought to put his own house in order first,” he rumbled placidly. Because truly, he didn’t care.

“We can promise you a hell of a fight,” the hunter offered. He obviously saw a kindred spirit in Josiah. Once upon a time, Josiah wouldn’t have disagreed.

“Hell…” He rolled the word around his tongue, tasting dust and flames and bitterness. “I've already been there.”

He could almost hear the soldier thinking _So have I._ “Think he'll change his mind?” he asked of Nathan.

Josiah hauled his stones.

“Maybe,” Nathan allowed, ever the optimist. “We could ride by tomorrow…”

 _And I will still be here,_ Josiah thought coldly. _Stone on stone…_

******

Ezra Standish was tired. And he was bored. A week in this town and he’d gained himself exactly forty dollars at the tables. He couldn’t imagine why he stayed, but the place…

Well, the place was an insufferable dustbowl and he’d likely leave any day now. The people were poor, by and large, and he didn’t lack _all_ morals, the way his mother did. He couldn’t sap them for _everything_. So he worked the cards as hard as he could sometimes to make sure even the worst players didn’t walk away destitute, while still lining his pockets enough to get the hell to San Francisco. Or Denver. Anywhere where he could start over again after that fiasco in Kansas City. Lord, if he never saw his mother again, it’d be too soon.

He knew himself better than one might credit, to look at him, and he knew that when he was bored, he was known to make poor decisions. So it was little surprise to find himself in the dankest, grittiest saloon in the little town, pulling the Drunk Man Shoots the Ace con. Because it was a con that could get you killed, and he needed a little excitement.

The cowboy before him squinted as he took aim at the queen of hearts on the darts board beside the bar. The man’s old pistol fired with a huge cloud of gunpowder and Ezra worried the damn thing had exploded before the man whooped, gesturing to the queen, whose hand had been shot through.

”Beat that, will you!” the cowboy said, dancing in his inebriated joy.

Ezra barely took notice of the four men who walked in and set up at the bar—and only then because he recognized the black healer, Jackson. He’d seen the tall white man womanizing here in the saloon, a harmless peacock out for "fun and charming," as his Aunt Carine would have said. The other two were the ones who’d saved Jackson’s life that morning.

With a bit of help. Assisting them in thwarting those idiots in the street today had been amusing, even if no one had known he was there. The moron he’d knocked sideways when he tried to shoot that beautiful woman…? That had been fun.

“You gonna take the bet or not?” one of the men at the table asked him. They were all cowboys, headed toward Mexico with a herd to be delivered to some wealthy Senor. Easy marks and soon to be on their way, so he could stay in town if he needed to. Never did to anger the townspeople until you were ready to leave.

He tossed back another shot of whiskey—actually drinking this one—and stood unsteadily, knocking his empty bottle to the floor and making sure to place his foot close to it. He pulled out his Remington and sighted the ace of spades the cowboy had used to replace the amputee queen.

“Stand aside, sir,” he told the man between him and the card, slurring his words realistically. The Lothario with the mustache at the bar was watching him with a broad smile that made him nervous. “You are... obstructing my view.” He let his aim yaw back and forth a moment. “This should be a piece of cake.”

He didn’t actually mean to hit the ugly stuffed bird on the mantle, but he wasn’t sad to see it go when he purposely let the empty bottle roll under his foot and send his shot high. Damn thing had been staring at him for days.

The cowboy to his right slammed a triumphant fist on the table. “Pay up!”

“Nonsense,” he protested, weaving slightly. “I was encumbered by the debris on the floor.”

The man laughed at him with his friends. _The perfect mark is a mark who thinks he’s superior._ “Well, let's just try it again.”

Ezra spread his arms extravagantly, uneasy that the three white men at the bar were watching the spectacle so closely. “With pleasure. Double or nothing.” He fumbled with his wallet, doubling his stake while flashing enough money to keep them all interested.

The man laughed again and slammed his money down on the bar as well. “It's your money. Get ready to duck, boys.”

Ezra smiled as he drew his second weapon, and again, that demon boredom took him. He made a mistake that, in retrospect, he never should have made.

He shot true once, piercing the single spade with as much ease as ever. He shot a blank. He kept shooting blanks because, well… He really was bored. Somewhere in his head, he was hoping for a fight.

“He put all six in the same hole!” he heard the bartender gasp.

“My, my,” he murmured, an amused smile on his face. “How astonishing. I've never done that before.”

The cowboy was a fool, but not a _complete_ fool. “You sure sobered up quickly, Mister,” he growled.

“Must be the desert air,” Ezra replied, letting a bit of steel seep into his voice. He readied himself. If it came to bullets, he could always disappear. But he was figuring on fisticuffs.

He was _hoping_ for fisticuffs, actually.

True to dream, the men all stood, spoiling for a pounding. “We don't take kindly to being hustled.” Oh dear. Except that the leader pulled his knife. Knives were a little more challenging. “Let's see how good you can shoot with one eye.”

Ezra made the first move, ducking under the blade and tackling the man behind the leader, using his momentum to spin the much larger man around and stop the leader from shoving the blade in his flank. Two of the men dove for him and he slipped his way out, but not before they each got in a solid punch.

By this time, of course, it was inevitable that other patrons got involved. It was just the way of barroom brawls—Ezra had been in enough of them to know. By the time he’d tripped over a leg for the third time and collected more head shots than he was really comfortable with, he decided it was about time for him to go.

He waited another moment, until he was sure the ruffians nearest him were occupied with other men’s fists, then summoned the silver that would wrap him up and make him invisible to those around him. He watched the colors fade, the saloon and its “patrons” now seen through a brownish lens, darks darker and lights brighter than real life. He’d seen a photography exhibit in St. Louis a couple of years ago, showing off a new technique called “sepia tinting,” and was amused by the accolades the “new innovation” received. He’d been looking at the world this way for twenty-some years. Every time he disappeared.

Making sure not to get in the way of any more fists, he made his way to a wall and skirted the action until he got to the bar, where he collected his winnings and slid out the back door with no one the wiser.

The trick that had first saved his life at the age of six, when one of his mother’s “paramours” had come at him with a pitchfork, stood him in good stead as he extended his invisibility to the money and slid it into his wallet. He would find a place to hole up until the cowboys moved on. Although really, he should just cut his losses in this horrible little burg, saddle up Chaucer, and be on his way…

Except that he wasn’t sure he really wanted to. The feeling was odd, and he didn’t like odd.

He was high enough on the fight and wrapped up in his own thoughts, so he wasn’t really looking around him—until he ran into a brick wall with a black duster on. The wall grunted with the impact, as if it hurt.

The surprise of the collision almost made Ezra lose control of his invisible state, but he held it together and tried to slide around the man who’d helped rescue the town’s healer just that morning. The man moved to intercept him.

“This might be easier if you go ahead and show yourself,” the tall blond told him, a slightly dangerous smile on his face. Lord, he did make for an imposing figure.

And could tell exactly where Ezra was even though he couldn’t see him, which was a puzzle Ezra just _had_ to solve. The scales of invisibility sloughed off of him and he smiled winningly. Which made exactly zero impression on the man before him.

“And how, pray tell, did you, ah…” He chuckled uncomfortably. “See me? Sense me?”

The man’s smile grew positively feral. “Smelled you.”

“Well now, that’s just rude—“ Ezra began, only to be interrupted by the arrival of the other men that the man in black had collected around him.

“Slippery little thing, ain’t he, Chris?” the mustached man said, leaning against the wall like a cat finding a place to nap. Despite the seeming indolence, he was clearly watching Ezra like a hawk.

As was the thin man in buckskin. “Nice shot, pard,” he said amiably, his voice a lazy Texas drawl. There was a diamond hard look to his eyes, though, as if he was seeing more than Ezra could afford for him to.

“Lucky,” Ezra corrected him cautiously, waiting to see what the man named Chris would say to the others. He’d only been found out once before. He still had the scars to remember the occasion, as invisibility did not, sadly, equate to being bulletproof. “I expect the lure of the pot focused my aim a mite.”

Chris looked over at the mustached man as if asking a question, but Ezra couldn’t see that he got any answer beyond a barely raised eyebrow.

“First shot was louder than the other five,” Chris said bluntly, turning his focus back to Ezra.

Ezra knew he was being baited, but couldn’t help responding. “What are you attempting to suggest?” Lord, proving that he really had cheated could be almost as dangerous as revealing his true nature.

But Chris didn’t seem interested in that, and the three white men were relaxed. Jackson was tense and annoyed at the side, but that wasn’t all that surprising. Ezra could hardly expect to be trusted by someone like him—and the feeling was more than mutual. “First bullet was real,” Chris announced easily, but quietly enough that no one nearby would be able to hear. “The rest were blanks.”

Chris was amused, Ezra realized. And inclined to keep Ezra’s secret, which endeared him to the southerner immediately. “Well, sir, I abhor gambling, and as such, leave nothing to chance.”

The answer seemed to satisfy him. “We’re looking for guns to protect an Indian village. You interested?”

Indian village? Honestly? It was so absurd it was almost intriguing. “Who’s financing?”

“The village,” Chris replied. A touch of gold flashed in his hand, and Ezra found himself taken in by the rough-sculpted medallion that looked to be pure gold. Where was the Indian mine, he wondered—if there was a nugget, perhaps there was a vein... “Five dollars a man.”

Okay, more absurd, less intriguing. “Five dollars wouldn’t even pay for my bullets.” Jackson was glaring, and Ezra did so hate to be glared at.

And none of this was his fight anyway. Better to get out now, before this man Chris let anyone else in on his secret. “Will _he_ be riding with you?” he asked, jerking his chin toward Jackson. When the mustached man nodded, a frown creasing his forehead, Ezra made up his mind. “Not interested.” Jackson grimaced, as if it was all he could expect of a fancified Southern white man.

And it probably was.

The man in buckskin moved forward, almost too close, as a loud crash and a query as to Ezra’s own whereabouts sounded from inside the saloon. “Reckon you should be leaving town anyway,” he said, a grin in his voice that was a shade too gloating.

Perversely, it served to make Ezra think twice. Mostly because his mind was a damned contrary place. “I’ll sleep on it,” he allowed, drawn again to the medallion Chris had yet to put away.

“He must’ve went out the back!” cried one of the cowboys from inside the building behind them. “Let’s get him!”

“Meet us at the livery at dawn,” Chris said, as if Ezra’s participation was a foregone conclusion. His mouth quirked mockingly as he pocketed the golden trinket. “If you live that long.”

The quartet moved off, leaving him standing against the back of the building. The second they were around the corner, he wrapped himself in silver and followed them, hearing Jackson speak for the first time.

“Why would we want to use a cheater?” Ezra sighed, watching, unobserved, as the black man shook his head in disgust.

Chris turned back and looked directly at the space Ezra occupied, though Ezra knew he couldn’t be seen.

“Might need one,” Chris said quietly, before moving them all on down the alley. The buck skinned man turned to look back and despite himself, Ezra ducked around the corner, invisible though he was.

“And we are right back to intriguing,” he breathed to himself, sticking his head back out to watch the four of them walk away.

*****  
to be continued…


	2. Chapter 2

Dawn broke with the cry of a crow, and Josiah sprang awake in the ruins of the old church, eyes on the sky.

The dream had come again: Seven against the Devil, each a power all his own. Quicksilver moving without form, lifting another to safety. A man who felt the pain of others, crying out as he was struck down. An innocent crushed under guilt, lashing out with powers untried. Hellfire extinguished by devotions uncontrolled…. The jumble was impossible to sort through, his own part in the mess difficult to see.

“Lord, if you aim to send a message, you might be a bit clearer,” he whispered, rubbing a rough callused hand down his face. Creaking limbs old with more than years pulled him upright, and he looked to the crow that sat in judgment on the archway that was all that remained of the original church.

“What are you looking at?” he asked the bird coldly. He wouldn’t be drawn in. He wasn’t meant to fight anymore—not on the side of righteousness nor damnation. He’d done enough damage in his life already…

But maybe… Maybe this was God’s plan. Finally. The dream of death, the crow waiting on him in the dawn.... _Hellfire extinguished._

Maybe God was sending him to face judgment for his crimes against His order. One good deed before he went.

The crow cawed rudely and wheeled toward the clouds high above. Josiah’s eyes tracked it until it crossed paths with a vision he’d seen before, years ago, on his first vision quest. _A tawny bird in flight, wings tipped in midnight…_

The bird that was like a hawk soared higher than any hawk should, its body indistinct but powerful. It played among the clouds, darting through the air currents with an ease akin to breathing and a joy that was palpable, even from this distance. It seemed to sight its prey, turning its face to the east and dropping with almost supernatural speed toward the Seminole village…

Toward destiny.

“This your answer, Lord?” Josiah asked the heavens.

No crow answered him.

**********

Buck didn’t show up on time to the livery, but he figured Chris would understand. He took a long moment in his room, trying to block the feelings of the town around him. Especially this group of men… Lord, this group. Something about all of them...

> The war was a horror for everyone involved, but Buck’s gift was a true curse on the battlefield—the cries of fear and pain he heard were so much less painful than the unspoken ones he felt. Until he met a captain, bright-eyed and young-looking with an age to him that made no sense. Chris Larabee wasn’t a legend to him, he wasn’t Soldier X who could bring down a battalion with a single rifle.
> 
> He wasn’t the Union’s Savior… But he sure as hell was Buck’s.
> 
> If he wasn’t on the battlefield, Corporal Wilmington could usually be found in one of two places: the local bar or the local brothel. Bars were places of constant noise and empty thoughts and Buck used the blankness as a shield against the silent screams calling forth from every medical tent and blood-drenched field. Brothels held their own despair, but the relief and healing a woman felt when a man like Buck was genuinely loving and gentle was a balm to him, reminding him that he _could_ be gentle amid so much hell.
> 
> And in between, he fought. Because a brawl was about survival, and deeper feelings rarely entered into it.
> 
> It was at the tail end of one such melee that Buck found himself hauled out by a man who felt like a beacon of light. It was the only way to describe it. Almost blind drunk and full up with the agony and despair of those around him, Buck looked into those storm-sea eyes, muddy green like the clouds before a twister, and felt the world fall away to silence. Just for a moment. The shock of it was such that he barely noticed the smaller man drag him bodily into a secluded tent until he landed on his rear in the dirt, the lantern on a small camp table lighting the spare interior.
> 
> “Who the hell are you?” Buck asked, hoping he didn’t sound as desperate to know the whole truth as he felt. Now that the man’s hands weren’t on him, the effect was lessened, but he could feel a turbulent serenity emanating from the blond captain.
> 
> “Captain Larabee,” he introduced himself. “Seems to me you needed a little time to sober up.”
> 
> “Ain’t the only one,” Buck barked back, trying to figure out the man. Larabee was amused, it was plain to see, but there was a curiosity there, as well. Curiosity about him.
> 
> “No, you aren’t,” Larabee agreed. “But if I put you all in the same tent, you’ll just get to brawling again and none of us’ll get any sleep.”
> 
> Buck snorted and smiled. “I reckon you’re right.”
> 
> Larabee looked him up and down. “You can stay in here ‘til we move out at dawn,” he offered, tossing Buck a bedroll and settling himself on the bare cot. “Get your head back on straight.”

And thus, with the first full night’s sleep Buck had gotten since he joined the army, began their friendship. Simple at first, Buck drawn to the silence that Chris could create in him, Chris drawn by… whatever it was that drew him. After more than a decade, Buck still didn’t know what that was. Whatever kept them gravitating toward each other, even after the hell and shit-storm that had been the death of Chris’s wife and child, it felt a lot like what was going on now. There were just more of them to share the feeling around.

Vin was a question. Hell, Vin was a damn mystery. He and Chris shared a spark Buck couldn’t even begin to name. It wasn’t a carnal attraction, exactly, it was something deeper. Like their souls had been waiting to find each other. That Vin was one of them—someone different—was obvious. Buck just hoped he was different in a good way, because damned if he could get a clear read on the man.

Nathan was definitely different in a good way; a man full of lightning, charged with something massive, but gentle as a lamb at the same time. He had a fury in him—especially when he’d looked at that slippery snake of a conman—but it was secondary. He felt a need to heal, and it was powerful and frightening all at once.

And thinking on things that were powerful and frightening, Josiah Sanchez… The man’s self-hate and anger were fathoms deep, and still, something deeper ran beneath them. Buck had almost been relieved when the intense preacher didn’t want to join them. If Vin was mayhem, Josiah was Armageddon.

Buck’s mind went back, unwillingly, to that conman, insisting on lumping him in with the rest. Chris had liked him, which struck Buck odd, given what the man was. Vin had been both surprised and intrigued by him—two of the few emotions from the man that Buck could feel easily. And damn it, beyond consternation and a giddy recklessness, Buck couldn’t read anything off the damn gambler at all! Except that there was a secret to him too, primal and wanting, and again, Buck wasn’t sure what it was. It was like there was something hiding inside him, waiting to be found. Buck knew, somehow, that the man would show up at the livery, regardless of his protestations.

“The hell did I get myself into?” he mused in his silence. It wasn’t _natural_ for a pack of people so strange and different to be in the same place at the same time, yet Nature was holding its breath around them all, waiting for them to draw together all the same. He strapped on his gun, grabbed his saddlebags, and took a minute to collect himself before walking out into the noise and emotion beyond the door.

Who was he to fight Nature, right? It had never worked for him before.

*******

Anyone looking at the chestnut horse tied to the fence of the paddock outside the livery would have thought him a little touched. Ezra stood beside him, feeling Chaucer dance and bridle against the ice-cold of his owner’s current invisibility.

“Now, now, Chaucer,” Ezra whispered, watching the other men gather by the stable door. “You know it’s better to get the lay of the land before proceeding.”

Chaucer snorted his discomfort and butted his unseen man rudely in the shoulder.

Ezra ignored him with practiced ease. He had taken time yesterday to find out what he could about the men who were riding to the village on this fool’s errand. Chris Larabee was a minor legend and needed little introduction. He was rumored to have been a formidable foe during the war, and had made a name for himself in the territory the last few years as a gunfighter of note.

Vin (whose last name no one seemed to know) was an enigma, and he probably had some suitably dark reason to want to keep himself that way. Ezra had seen him working at the general store the day he’d come into town, but he was clearly not from here and no one knew the least bit about him—he was even staying in a broken down wagon next to the general store, instead in a boarding house like a reasonable person. He’d shown himself to be an excellent shot in saving Nathan Jackson, but that was all Ezra could gather.

Nathan Jackson was a healer and a miraculous one, by all accounts. He was an ex-slave and carried himself like one. Ezra sighed, knowing he hadn’t won any prizes himself in reacting to the man, but the memory of New Orleans could never stop being fresh and painful. His own young life had changed forever when another “miraculous healer” laid hands on his father, and he would never forgive any of them for it.

Buck Wilmington was a womanizer and a flirt. He’d been around less than a month and already, every woman in town was in love with him, apparently. He was an open book: a brawler, a lover, and clearly a loyal friend of Chris Larabee’s from way back.

“Quite the motley crew, my dear Chaucer,” he whispered.

He watched Chris Larabee look up with a smile, clearly sensing Vin coming up behind him, though the man in buckskin was silent in his approach, almost as invisible as Ezra himself, in his own way. Ezra wondered, though, if he didn’t have some deformity—even light on his feet as he was, the muslin shirt he wore sat awkwardly on his back.

“You’re late,” Larabee said, finally turning to look at him.

“Figured I should eat before I ride off to my death,” Vin replied with a grin of his own. His cheeks were red with exertion and wind-burned, as if he’d run his horse hard, though the animal he led seemed relaxed and rested. He gazed around curiously. “Where’s your friend?”

“He’ll be here,” Larabee assured him. He went back to settling his things on his horse and didn’t look up as Jackson walked down the stairs from the room above the livery. “You ready to go, doc?” he asked, his gaze wandering as Jackson lashed a satchel of supplies and his saddlebags to his own horse. Larabee’s eyes ghosted over Chaucer, and Ezra unaccountably ducked behind his steed, invisible though he was. He stuck his head back out to see Larrabee break into that knowing smirk of his.

Damn it. “So much for the element of surprise,” he muttered to Chaucer.

“Thought you got caught by another of your lady friends,” Larabee called out as Buck Wilmington sauntered up, his saddlebags on his shoulder and his rifle in his hand. He collected his horse from the stable boy and readied for the trip.

Larabee looked over at Chaucer again and mounted his horse. “Could've used a few more men,” he grumbled, as if inviting Ezra to join them.

Vin smiled, sparing Ezra’s horse a curious look of his own, as if trying to see what Larabee saw. “Fewer ways to split that huge pot,” he joked back, smiling at Buck as the tall man led his horse beside them.

Wilmington nodded. “Looks like you're going to have to shoot straight for once, old pard.”

The four men turned as one at the sound of a horse prancing along the street nearby. A young gelding, more spirited than smart, trotted up and came to a controlled stop at the hands of the child who rode him. Perhaps a touch shorter than Ezra himself, the boy of perhaps eighteen years had the long black hair and formal dress of an Easterner and a light in his eyes that he probably would have called enthusiasm, but Ezra knew more rightly as the hubris of youth.

He remembered the boy from the rescue of Nathan Jackson—he’d tried to shoot a man in the back, and didn’t looked to have gained any more wisdom in the last day.

“Whoa,” he said, reining in the gelding a bit farther. “I hear you fellas are headed for a fight.” He struck the most ridiculous pose. “My name is JD Dunne, and I can ride.” He tooled the horse in a circle and even Chaucer snorted at the foolish show.

Ezra sloughed off his invisibility and mounted, Chaucer prancing underneath him in his own annoyance. Whether it was the cold of his touch, or the smell of the vanishing silver Ezra left behind, Chaucer never had appreciated his owner’s trick.

“And I can shoot,” Mr. JD Dunne pronounced further. And like a moron, he did. The green horse didn’t take kindly to that and bucked the child off and into a nearby trough.

“And he can fly,” Ezra told the world, announcing his arrival.

“And he can swim, too,” Wilmington muttered, a touch of something gentle and interested in his tone.

Dunne looked up at them all and growled his frustration before turning toward his horse, who was headed angrily for parts unknown. “Very funny,” he griped. The unattended animal stopped short in the middle of the street, a whinny of surprise letting loose as he clamped down on his bit angrily and the young man approached him. Ezra wondered how a child who could teach his horse to stop on a dime without a man on his back couldn’t teach the poor thing to tolerate gunfire.

“You made it,” Larabee said, voice satisfied as he grinned at Ezra.

It felt uncomfortably like sharing a private joke, and Ezra really couldn’t say what he thought of Chris knowing his secret. Yet here he was… He guessed that made him either intrigued or foolhardy. Damned if he could tell which.

“Hell, I couldn't stay away,” he replied, still stifling his laughter at the Dunne Spectacle. “Not once I saw I'd be riding with a genuine celebrity.” He unfolded the newspaper he’d purchased in the restaurant this morning, reading from the lead story. "’The streets ran red with the blood of twenty men yesterday as new resident and notorious gunslinger Chris Larabee turned our quiet town into a shooting gallery.’"

He was surprised to find the paper ripped from his hand and crumpled as Larabee favored him with a vicious look and dismounted, handing his reins to Wilmington. The taller man sighed and watched his friend stalk off toward the newspaper office.

“He’ll be right back,” Wilmington said sadly. He looked Ezra up and down with a smile that was, again, disconcerting. There was something all too… _knowing_ about Buck Wilmington. “Figured you’d’ve disappeared by now,” he said jovially. Vin snorted loudly in response. Jackson ignored him with studied indifference.

Ezra kept his poker face through his spike of fear, cataloging the slight frown on Wilmington’s face and the light of something else in Vin’s eyes when he did. “I assure you, sir,” Ezra said quietly. “This is not the first time I’ve run into difficulty in a strange town.”

After a moment, Wilmington laughed. “No, I reckon it’s not,” he agreed.

 _I do devoutly hope,_ Ezra finished silently, _that it is not the last._

*********

 _You’re nothing short of a human volley gun, Captain Larabee._ General Joseph Hickman’s voice rang through Chris’s mind, dredging up the worst of his time as Soldier X. Hickman had been a bloodthirsty monster who caused the deaths of nearly two dozen of his own men in a needless ambush on a small Texas town. The fact that he’d killed twice that many young Tejanos had earned him his plaudits and his place on the committee that oversaw Erskine’s work. He’d been positively giddy at the demonstration showing off Chris’s now faster-than-human speed with a gun.

Chris had been vaguely nauseated by the simulated bloodbath, though of course he knew that it was just a test case. He would never be called upon to do something like that. Never. Certainly not in two separate, equally horrific wars.

“That ain’t who I am,” he growled low, wishing he could believe it.

He held his temper as best he could as he walked in the open door of the newspaper office. The woman who’d introduced herself as Mary Travis the day before sat at the table, writing, and looked up at him with a poise and directness that infuriated him.

“I see you've read it,” she said quietly.

Chris advanced on her, darkly pleased to see her glass-green eyes widen slightly in surprise.

“As I recall, your quiet town was full of drunken scum looking to lynch a man.”

She recovered quickly and he was involuntarily impressed. “If I have to bend the facts a little to keep our town safe and if the next bunch of drunken scum decides to steer clear of here, then it was worth another black mark on your already less-than-stellar reputation, Mr. Larabee.” _Sanctimonious bitch._ “You see, I took the liberty of researching your past in my late husband's files.”

“You read second-hand trash, and you think you know a man?” he asked her, leaning in, trying to calm himself and the anger that was always too close to the surface since Sarah died. “You don't know me.”

She blinked, moving back slightly, and the fear in her eyes had him heading for the door, disgusted by himself. “I'm just trying to scare the bad element away from this town,” she defended herself.

_“We’re just trying to protect the Anglo-Americans already in Texas, Lieutenant Larabee.”_

_“We’re trying to preserve the American way of life, Captain. Keep the Union strong!”_

He turned in the doorway to face her, fighting the urge to laugh. Sixty-five years of life and nothing ever changed. “Lady,” he whispered. “I _am_ the bad element.”

Not even that.

********

JD watched Chris Larabee and his posse leave town, and seethed. He’d known, the second he’d rode that stagecoach into town and seen Larabee and that white Indian walking tall down the street, ready for a fight, that this was where he was meant to be. But twice now, they’d dismissed him like a little kid.

Well, he wasn’t a child! This was what he’d come West to do—help people, save villages, the sort of thing that heroes were made for. He’d used a large chunk of the last of his money to buy the best horse he could find in the little town. He was green, but JD had trained greener. Crusoe twitched and fussed beside him, and JD gently toyed with the bit in the horse’s mouth, using only his mind to do it. God, it took a lot of thought to move something that small!

He’d first moved something without touching it when he was fifteen—he’d walked into the barn to find one of the Master’s older sons having his… trying to… _bothering_ one of the servant girls, and it was like his brain twitched and the pitchfork clattered loudly to the ground, startling all three of the them and running the man off.

He felt like, if he could just figure out how it worked, he could do something with it. Something amazing. Something legendary. He practiced, but aside from being able to knock cans off a ledge, he couldn’t control much. It all seemed to come in fits and spurts and sometimes did more harm than good.

But he’d keep trying. He smiled as the bit jiggled in Crusoe’s mouth, calming the fractious horse. Nothing epic came easy.

“You’re meant for more than this, Johnny,” his mother had told him—more times than he could count. “You keep up your reading, keep to your studies. Someday we’ll find the money to get you into a school and there’ll be no stopping you.”

Hadn’t happened that way, and the pain of her death was still sharp and nagging. He’d do her proud. Somehow.

The old tin watch she’d given him just months before she died jerked in his pocket in response to his thoughts and he growled, realizing that he’d lost control of the bit in Crusoe’s mouth as well. Dang it! He let the bit relax, petting the horse in apology for the rough treatment. There had to be a way to learn how to use this, right? He’d learned to ride, learned to shoot. Hell, he’d been training horses since he was thirteen years old! Why couldn’t he learn to use this gift?

If it was a gift at all, not just one more freak thing about poor little Johnny Dunne, worthless bastard stableboy.

“No,” he told himself, grabbing on to the certainty he’d felt when he’d looked at Larabee and his men. “I’m meant for this.” All those dime store novels he’d read—heck, he knew most of them were made up, but… But there were heroes out there like them. Like Chris Larabee and his men.

And dang it, JD was going to figure out how to be a part of them!

He patted Crusoe lightly on the neck and looked out at the cloud of dust the five men had left behind them. He knew where they were going. He could get there first, maybe keep an eye out for ambush—show Mr. Larabee he could be useful for something.

“Come on, boy,” he said, mounting easily and tapping his heels to the horse’s flanks. “We got some riding to do.”

********

Josiah watched the five of them come, grinning at the addition of the trickster to the foursome he’d dismissed so angrily yesterday.

What a difference a day made, he thought, almost content as he gave his old horse a light peck on the muzzle. He was sure now that the tawny bird had been the sign he’d been waiting for. Now all he had to do was play out his part.

Nathan broke into a smile as they approached. “Why'd you change your mind?” he asked, delighted.

“The birds,” Josiah told him briefly.

“What birds?” Nathan had played these games with him before, and Josiah could see the young man’s smile fighting to come out.

“A sign,” he intoned, watching the trickster grin broadly at the terse and playful back-and-forth.

“What does that mean?” Nathan asked, acting his part, despite the confusion on the faces of the rest of the group.

“Death,” Josiah told him, approaching the end of the game.

“Whose?” Nathan asked, a childish grin breaking out.

Josiah matched it as he slung himself up into his saddle. “Probably mine.”

The trickster laughed with genuine mirth and interest. Josiah thought the boy must get bored quite easily. “Well, well,” he said, his smile showing off a gold tooth and his green eyes, a sharp intellect. “A sense of humor.” He tipped his hat to Josiah, and Josiah did the same. “I look forward to many lively conversations.”

“What about all this?” Nathan looked around at the skeleton of the church. Josiah wondered if God had ever meant it to be anything more than a way station on his path to justice.

He guessed he’d find out if he lived to see it again. “These stones will still be here if I get back,” he assured his young friend.

The hunter gravitated toward him, as Josiah figured he would. Younger than even Nathan and the trickster, he had a secret smile on his lips. “Birds, huh? Don’t know about them, but we can use another good man,” he said, sticking out his hand.

Josiah shook it, taken aback by the strength in what seemed such fine-boned fingers. “Not so good,” he warned him. “But I can fight.”

“Then we’re glad to have you,” the soldier said.

 _Let us hope that continues to be true,_ Josiah thought to himself as they headed into the sun.

*********

They were nearly to the village when Buck sighed in frustration and straightened in his saddle. _Boy don’t know when to quit,_ he thought to himself. Not a second later, Chris nodded to the ridge above them.

“You going, Buck?” he asked. Because of course he’d noticed they were being followed, even without benefit of Buck’s “special sensitivities.” Though who the hell could miss the stupid bowler hat sticking out from the rocks on the ridge above the village?

“Going where, exactly?” Standish asked, confused.

Apparently their newest recruit could. Buck didn’t bother to answer, just turned Lady around and backtracked to the trail that would take him up to the ridge. If Chris wanted to explain, let him.

Buck would just go up and try to keep that kid from getting himself killed.

There was something bright and innocent about the boy, but the bravery of him was what got Buck. The mouse that dreamed of being a lion. He’d known a few boys like him—been one himself, once upon a time—but life hadn’t worked out for but a few of them. He figured it was his job to put the boy in his place and send him packing back to the safety of the East.

He left Lady at the crest of the ridge, munching happily on some sweet grass, and walked silently up to the stand of rocks. That green little gelding looked up at him as he approached, but a wordless stroke of his head quieted him down. Didn’t take but a second for Buck to slide up behind the Easterner.

“One,” the boy was counting, looking down into the valley at the approach to the village as Chris and the rest kept riding. “Two, three, four, five…”

Well now, he couldn’t ask for a better entrance cue, could he? Buck cocked his gun in the child’s ear. “Six.”

The boy froze, his fear flushed through Buck real quick, and Buck’s gun uncocked and jerked back—seemingly all on its own. He shook his head, but shrugged off his confusion.

“If you're trying to stay hid,” he told the boy, who now looked up at him with a hangdog look, “it's best to remove your hat.” He tipped the fanciful bowler off the boy’s head for good measure. “On second thought, you might want to think about losing the hat altogether. Leastwise that one.”

JD Dunne, who could ride and shoot and fly and swim, glared at him and retrieved the headwear. “You think you’re so funny, huh?”

Buck shook his head, getting out of the way so the boy could leave the badly-chosen blind for the proper protection behind it. “Reckon the funny thing here is why you’re trying so hard to get yourself killed, son.”

“I’m _not_ your son,” Dunne barked, a feeling of loss and anger and powerless pain lashing out from him. “Look, I can help you, but if you don’t want it—”

“What I want is for you to see a few more years, kid,” Buck said mildly. He took hold of the gelding and grabbed the lasso from its saddle horn. He grabbed the boy’s hands without asking and tied them up tight, reading the anxiety and the excitement and that damn fool endless bravery of the kid as their skin met. Something else ran beneath, but the kid was bursting with too much and it was hard to take it all in.

Lord, to be that young again! He smiled once he had the knots done to his satisfaction, and grabbed the stupid hat, perching it on his own head and grabbing the reins to lead the both of them back to Lady.

“Hey!” Dunne yelled as he was dragged along on unwilling feet. “You can’t do this! I was only—”

“Trying to help,” Buck finished for him. “Yeah, I know, kid. You know what they say about the road to Hell, though, don’t you?”

********

As the five of them rode into the village, Chris looked around at the suspicious and angry faces of Indians and ex-slaves alike, wondering once more why the hell he was here. When he’d left for the war, his father had called him a fool who never knew when to stop fighting, and he supposed he was proving that again right now.

The village had seen damage—cannon fire by the look of it—and the people were clearly scared, but they would fight. Chris knew from experience that one Indian village could take down a regiment if they wanted to. All they needed was a reason.

“Welcome,” called Tastanagi boldly. “We greet you with hostility.”

Standish snorted, and Chris leaned back toward Vin. “I think he means hospitality.”

“Nope,” Vin disagreed amiably. “I think he means hostility.”

Chris silently conceded the point, and Tastanagi tilted his head in admission. “Some of our people find it impossible to trust white men.”

“And you?” Chris asked, though the fact that the old man had come looking for them was an answer in itself.

“Not impossible,” he said simply. “Just... difficult.”

Vin slid up beside Chris, his breath in his ear. “You never told us they had a cannon,” he told the Indian chief mildly, his gaze going to the bombed out dwelling at the edge of the village.

“You didn't ask,” Tastanagi replied just as mildly.

A ruckus came from the upper trail, and Chris looked to see Buck and Lady trailing a walking JD Dunne and his horse along behind them on a pony line. Might have been a little overkill, there. “Hey, boys! Look what I found.”

Something about the Easterner had gotten to Buck, it was plain to see. He jerked the rope like a torturing older brother, and the kid jogged a bit to keep up with him. “Come on.”

“I was covering you,” Dunne called angrily, grunting and throwing off the ropes as Buck released the slip knot with a deft tug. “I was making sure you weren't walking into an ambush.”

“How'd you get here ahead of us?” Chris asked conversationally.

Sensing a sympathetic ear, Dunne came forward. “I told you, I can ride.” He pulled himself up proudly. “I cut around the canyon rim.”

Chris let his face and voice go cold. “Well, I suggest you ride back the same way.”

“I can help,” the kid vowed, walking up so close that Chris could smell the excitement and the fear on him. “If you give me a chance I am ready to fight.”

Buck piped up, mocking and downright cruel. “You think you're ready, boy?” he taunted, playing with a rifle that must have been Dunne’s. “Let me guess…” he ventured. Chris watched silently, wondering what Buck and his gift might have to say about the child. “You learned to ride in prep school. Then you read some dime-store novel about Kit Carson—got you all fired up.” Something about the boy’s body language paid lie to that assumption, but Chris wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Figured you'd come out west and try your hand as a gunfighter. Is that about right?”

Regardless of the kid’s story, Chris was done with getting innocents killed in hopeless causes that were not their own. He’d had enough of it in the wars to last even _his_ lifetime. “Go home,” he told Dunne. “You're not the type.”

But Dunne wasn’t ready to quit. Damn kid. “A man comes to you because he respects you,” he said, his breath beating against Chris’s back where he’d turned to Pony’s saddle to untie his own rifle. “Because he'd be proud to work with you. This is how you treat him?”

Chris turned, his gaze dead and dangerous, his voice flat and dismissive. “Go home, kid.”

With a look of anger and disillusionment, the boy stumbled back to his horse and led it off toward the trail. Buck made to follow, but a look from Chris had him stopping. No use embarrassing Dunne further.

“He is young and proud,” Tastanagi proclaimed, sounding a little apologetic for the child.

Chris’s mind was full of nameless dead. “We could carve that on his tombstone.”

“I'm an expert at prayers for the dying,” Josiah offered. Should have sounded flip, but the man had demons on his ass. It was more a pronouncement of their coming futures.

Standish’s laugh grated on Chris in the very worst way, and Buck’s assessing eye on him didn’t help a damn bit. “Oh, I like this guy,” Standish said, his mirth lighting his face as he gestured to Sanchez. “Lord help me, I like him.” He calmed himself a sight, but spoke what was clearly the God’s honest truth. “I'm in this for the laughs, if nothing else.”

 _Damn sure we’ll have to write that on_ your _tombstone,_ Chris thought angrily.

“Let's get started,” he barked, glaring at the gambler and willing him to silence. “We got four days.”

“Less,” Tastanagi warned, stopping Chris in his tracks. “He is an old warrior.” Chris’s mind supplied the words the old man spoke even as he spoke them. “He will come early. To surprise us.”

Chris sighed. “Figure maybe we should be the ones surprising him.” He looked over at Vin. “You’re a tracker, right? How fast can you move?”

Vin’s eyes widened slightly at the question. “Fast enough.”

“Make a round of the area,” Chris commanded. “Let’s see if we can’t figure out where they’re holed up.” He gritted his teeth. “If he’s as good as he could be, it’ll be too defensible to attack head on, but it’ll give us an idea of how long it’ll take him and where he’ll strike from.”

Vin nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Don’t get seen,” Chris warned him.

He was surprised when the young man smiled, making him look like a schoolboy up to mischief. “I ain’t invisible,” he said, with a queer look at Standish that made Chris think. “But I can keep hid.” With that promise, Tanner headed off on foot.

“Mayhem, I tell you,” Buck whispered with a grin. Chris looked after Vin and couldn’t find it in him to disagree.

At the word invisible, Standish had started to clear his throat, probably to suggest he’d go scouting too, but damned if Chris was going to let him out of his sight quite yet—in a literal sense. He didn’t make much of a first impression, trust-wise, and Chris didn’t like the fact that his own nose was the only thing they could use to track the gambler. “Standish, Buck? Why don’t you see what we got to work with?”

Standish nodded, clearly knowing when not to argue, and moved out. Buck, damn him, gave Chris a raised eyebrow and headed the other way. No, Chris had no idea why he’d wanted Standish to come with them—Buck sure as hell didn’t need to rub it in.

“Josiah,” Chris offered, seeing an old soldier in the man’s eyes. “Let’s you and me sit down with Tastanagi and get to planning.” He looked at Nathan and knew what the young healer wanted—needed—to do. “There’ll be people needing help, Nathan,” he said. “Best see to that.”

As they all headed off to do his bidding, and Tastanagi looked at him with the respect of a fellow leader, Chris tried to keep his stomach out of his throat. God, he’d never wanted to be a leader again at all.

But maybe Erskine had been right. Maybe he was just plain born to it. Seemed a hell of a curse today.

*******  
to be continued…


	3. Chapter 3

Buck walked off alone into the hills around midafternoon. There was just too much going on in the village. The women were excited and scared and angry, the men were all three of those and then some. The children had been whipped into such a frenzy by that damn fool gambler that Buck could barely think past them. 

And over it all was the knowledge that the six of them that had rode out from Four Corners were all being pulled by something. Something almost mystical. 

Now he might not fight Nature, but Buck Wilmington didn’t cotton to anyone pulling his strings. 

He’d almost cleared his mind when he felt it. Anger and hate so damn powerful he was like to suffocate from it. He sidled up to the edge of the rocks he was skirting and caught sight of a horse with military tack, standing placid and unmanned. He was just easing back to pull his gun when the anger and hate crashed down on him. 

The man who had leaped off the rocks above and pinned him deftly to the ground was smaller than him, but fought like a wildcat. He had on an ill-fitting cavalry uniform, but he was Indian, through and through. His eyes shone with contempt and his skin, where it touched Buck’s, burned with a need to protect and avenge… Add to that the big old cavalry knife he had in his hand and Buck quickly found himself in a world of hurt. 

“Who are you?” the brave growled at him. 

“Nobody you need to use that pig sticker on,” Buck said, trying for calm but fighting against the young man’s fury. 

“Why are you in my village?” the brave demanded. 

“Hey!” Buck protested, trying to get out from under the boy. “I'm one of the good guys.” 

The Indian’s bigotry almost overwhelmed Buck’s senses. “You're wearing the wrong skin.” 

As the knife settled too heavily against Buck’s throat, a gunshot rang out, not hitting anything, but snapping the Indian’s attention to the side and letting Buck roll the boy underneath his larger frame, pinning him. The Indian growled and suddenly gasped as the knife launched itself from his hand and out of reach. Buck could feel his surprise as a dim emotion buried in the rest. The brave rolled them back over, now using his hands to try to take Buck’s neck clean from his body. 

Another gunshot rang out and the bright, foolhardy sensation of JD Dunne shone forth from somewhere nearby. 

“I got him!” the boy yelled. Buck looked up to see Dunne standing over them, watched as he reversed his gun and slammed it into the brave’s skull. 

God damn fool! Caught up in the heat of the moment, Buck couldn’t distinguish his own worry from the anger of the unconscious man he shoved away from him. Dunne could have gotten himself killed! Buck clawed his way to standing and slammed a well-deserved fist into Dunne’s face. 

“You stupid son of a...” He looked down at the boy, whose mouth was bleeding and whose eyes held betrayal. Buck’s ire suddenly cooled. “You damn near shot me,” he offered lamely. 

“Hey!” the kid yelled back, coming to his feet. “I was—” 

“Trying to help,” Buck finished for him, struggling for calm. He bent down to grab the Indian brave’s hands. “Why don’t you help by finding me some damn rope to tie this boy up?” he grunted. 

God _damn_ this job! What the hell had he been thinking, following Chris into this? 

****** 

“Figure they’re holed up in the caves north of here,” Vin reported. “I couldn’t get too close without being seen—too much open space around ‘em—and I doubt they’re stupid enough to be camping out in the open.” 

Chris nodded. It was about what he’d thought. Whoever this soldier was, he was smart. 

“Imala!” The young woman’s cry had Chris standing up. “He has come back!” 

Buck stomped into the village ponying another prisoner, this time a brave with eyes that flashed both anger and relief. Buck’s eyes had all the anger and none of the relief and Chris had seen him like this before. That gift of his wasn’t much of one when it came to the really dark feelings. 

A little boy had been showing Tastanagi the dummies the children and Standish had spent the day creating. He stood, bristling with joy. “Imala!” 

“Buck, let him go,” Chris called. He was only just surprised when Buck did as he was ordered. _He’s too far on edge,_ Chris thought. Didn’t bode well for the fight ahead. 

“Imala,” Tastanagi cried. “Imala, my son!” The chief and the brave ran to each other, embracing. “I thought you were dead!” 

“I escaped from the white man's prison,” Imala said. He held his father away from him. “Do you know why I was in prison?” he asked, shooting an angry glare at Buck. Chris tensed, waiting for the explosion. “For the crime of not being white. And what do I find when I return? These white men.” 

“That's it!” Buck shouted, throwing his hat to the ground. “What in the blue blazes are we doing here, other than risking our lives for a chunk of gold that wouldn't even fill a tooth?” He advanced on Imala, as dangerous as Chris had ever seen him. “And why would I die for you?” 

Tastanagi didn’t interfere and neither did Chris. The two men had to have this out quick, or the battle against Anderson and his men would be the least of their worries. Imala would poison the well without even meaning to and Buck would be in the wind, fractious and undone. Chris had seen it before and it wasn’t pretty. 

Like an angel, a voice called out to show them both what the fight was about. 

“Imala!” a young woman came forward, holding a baby in her arms. Imala embraced her, stepping away from Buck to do so. Buck’s eyes went a little soft and his hands balled into fists as he tried to sort himself out. “Your son,” she said gently, presenting the child. 

Chris stopped himself before he reached out to touch Buck. His old friend was teetering, and even he could push him over the edge. 

So of course, JD Dunne had to open his damn mouth, gesturing to Buck but looking at Chris with righteous indignation as the Indian family went off to reunite in private. “He'd be dead right now if it weren't for me.” 

Buck’s voice was less dangerous as he looked at the boy, his glare less uncontrolled. “You damn near shot my ear off,” he barked back. 

The bee got right up in the bear’s face and Chris grinned small to see Buck warming to the confrontation. This could calm him down. Burn out the feelings if nothing else. Long as he didn’t kill the kid. 

“But I didn't,” Dunne responded indignantly. “Did I? I saved your life twice.” He brandished two fingers. “Twice!” 

“You think I couldn't handle him?” Buck asked, low and baiting. 

Dunne seemed to see he might be in trouble. Chris scented the buffalo and hawk of Vin on one side of him and the burnt silver of Standish coming up on the other, but he only had eyes for Buck, as his old friend finally started to bleed off the emotions of the fight he’d just been in. Must’ve been bad, for him to get so far to the edge like that. 

“I just want to prove to you that I can—” Dunne started. 

Buck was on him in a second, yanking the boy’s pistol from his belt. “Don't ever use the butt of your gun as a weapon,” he yelled, waving it in the air. His hand jerked hard and the gun dropped, landing in Dunne’s hand. The kid looked damn pleased. 

Buck shook his hand and stared at it a second before continuing. “You keep smacking it around and before long, it's going to misfire.” Vin started chuckling as Buck circled the boy, and Standish was giggling in that careless way he had. Damn gambler. “And another thing,” Buck crowed, grabbing Dunne’s bowler and stomping it into the ground. “Get rid of this damn, stupid hat!” 

By now, Vin was all-out laughing at their antics. “What Buck means is thanks, kid.” 

“Mr. Larabee—” Dunne started. 

Chris held up his hand, his eyes catching hold of Buck’s briefly. _You okay?_ Buck shrugged. _Good as I can be._ He looked at the kid and Chris nodded. “If you want to die young,” Chris told the boy, “stay.” 

“Yes!” Dunne crowed, that light in his eyes. 

The Light of Perpetual Stupid, Buck had called it during the war. That fire to throw your life away for a cause you didn’t really even understand… Chris damned himself for letting the boy take part in this campaign. His death—like so many others—was like to be on Chris’s soul before long. But for some reason he couldn’t say no. 

He turned away from Buck and Dunne’s horseplay, knowing that the playfighting would calm Buck’s soul enough to get him through. He wondered if Buck could feel what he did. That the world was holding its breath around them. Around _them_ , they… seven. 

Hell, it was a good number if nothing else, right? 

****** 

Evening saw Ezra more exhausted than he would have liked to be. He had let the children do the hunting and gathering, but in the end, there had been the circus tricks to rig and the traps to set. It was easier to do it himself than to explain, but his sensitive hands were damning him for the manual labor. 

“I expect you’re tired after all your supervising, Ezra,” Josiah Sanchez called to him, a bottle of whiskey in his hand where he sat alone on a log by the white man’s fire. They still weren’t entirely welcome, and likely never would be. The former slaves had been giving Ezra such looks of anger and contempt every time he opened his mouth, he was sure he had burns on his face. 

“I believe I could use a bit of refreshment,” he allowed, sitting on the ground across from Josiah and taking the whiskey over the heat of the fire. He studied the older man carefully as they shared the bottle. 

Sanchez was an interesting one. He was driven by something horrible, something Ezra had no desire to know, and he had put in the most bone-breaking day of work the Indians had gotten from any of them, building walls to slow the horses, praying over the damn things, like that would somehow make them stronger. A man of God, but with demons in his eyes… 

_Lord, my curiosity will be the death of me one day,_ he thought, wondering where the others had gotten to. He’d only been peripherally aware of their activities as he went about his work, but now he had the feeling they should all be keeping tabs on each other. 

_Foolishness, Ezra,_ he told himself. _You’ve got more to do here than play sitter to six men who can take care of themselves._

He’d spent the day gaining the children’s trust, which had been about half his plan. Yes, there were fortifications to be made, no doubt, but once the day was saved, the village freed of these ghosts, as they called them, he was expecting a reward greater than one-seventh of that introductory chunk of gold. The children likely worked the mine occasionally, or at least knew where it was. He’d be ready to ask them soon, and they’d be willing to tell Mr. Ezra. He wouldn’t take it all—hell, it was stupid to clean any mine out, wasn’t it? Doubly stupid when the people working the place so clearly needed what it had to offer. No, he’d only take a bit. Just… something more than what he had. 

That was all he’d ever wanted, wasn’t it—all his mother, untrustworthy though she was, had ever wanted for him. Just something more… 

He and the preacher were most of the way through the bottle before he spoke again. “Why'd you sign on, Josiah?” he asked finally, hoping drink would loosen the man’s tongue. “What is it you expect to gain?” 

Josiah’s voice was rough with far more than drink, and a chill went through Ezra as he spoke. “I saw a world of darkness in a dream,” he said. “When I woke up, a crow was sitting in my church staring at me like the devil himself.” He seemed like he wanted to say more, but didn’t. 

“Your ‘vision of death’, eh?” Ezra left him the end of the bottle to finish off. “Why come here?” 

Again, there was clearly more to it than Josiah would say. “If death's coming, I'd just as soon meet it head on.” 

“And get your reward in the hereafter?” Wonderful—he’d thrown in with a man with a death wish. 

Josiah’s eyes went hollow and Ezra felt that little bit unsafe. 

“I was a priest once,” Josiah replied darkly. “But there were more things in Heaven and Earth than were dreamt of in that Good Book.” He spat the last sip of whiskey at the flames, causing them to spring up for a moment. “If you get my meaning.” 

Ezra didn’t, but he didn’t expect anyone did. So, being who he was, he changed the subject. “I did a turn preaching the word myself,” he threw out, with the sound of a man who wanted to tell a tale. 

Josiah didn’t seem much interested. “Is that right?” 

Still, it was a good story. Worth telling. “The best swindle I ever knew. Just stand up there under that tent, terrify the congregation with a vision of hellfire, and pass the collection plate.” 

“Yeah,” Josiah grunted, a maudlin humor to him. Ezra had the idea the old man had seen more than one conman in a pulpit—maybe _been_ that conman, once upon a time. 

Josiah’s silence remained thick and foreboding, and Ezra delivered the punch line a bit earlier than he would have normally. “Did fine, too. Until I attempted to save the soul of the mayor's daughter.” 

At that, he got a genuine smile from the old preacher. “Yup,” Josiah agreed. “Saving souls has its hazards.” He stared into the flames, clearly not inclined to say another word. 

“We would both do well to seek our bedrolls, wouldn’t you say?” Ezra eventually offered into the silence. “Mr. Larabee has drafted me for the midnight watch, so I must sleep while I can.” Josiah didn’t so much as nod. This man unnerved him, but there was… something about him. Hell, there was something about all of them—even that child, Dunne. 

“Believe I’ll listen to the silence a while longer, Brother Ezra,” Josiah told him. “Shore up my defenses for the coming wave.” 

“Uh-huh,” Ezra muttered, rising. He was odd, no doubt about it. “Well, I shall leave you to it, then,” he said, heading into the dark. 

“Night, Ezra,” Josiah called quietly after him. 

Intriguing was apparently the word for the entire sad cast of them, Ezra thought to himself. 

Just what the hell had he gotten himself into? 

********* 

Ever since they’d changed him, Chris had never been able to sleep more than three or four hours of a night, so he scheduled his own turn as watchman for the hour of dawn. Vin had offered the three hours before then, and Standish the three before that. He wondered if either of them slept at all. Leaving his bedroll earlier than he’d planned, he climbed the cliff trail, figuring to find Vin up there. Maybe they could talk about that look the hunter had given Standish... 

Chris had still been awake when Ezra returned from his watch, faking slumber and not quite willing to admit to himself that he hadn’t been sure the gambler would do his duty. But he had, and woken Vin quietly and politely, telling him that all was calm, before finding his bedroll. Chris shook his head as he reached the top of the ridge and made his way along it in silence. 

When Chris took Buck Wilmington under his wing, he’d known exactly what the young corporal was. Back in the time between wars, there had been a girl at the medical facility just like him—she’d gotten so caught up in the feelings and worries of others that she eventually lost herself entirely. Chris hadn’t wanted to see that happen again, and he’d become damn good at curbing his own feelings over the years. Buck had clung to that and survived the war, and Chris had found a friend who knew who he was and what he felt and how much he hated himself for the things he’d done and just plain didn’t care. 

So taking on Buck, Chris could explain to himself, but Standish? It had been complete instinct to offer the man a spot in this damn campaign, stupid though it seemed on the surface. The gambler was childish and cunning and _invisible_ at times, but in his eyes, Chris saw something… worth the trouble. Maybe. Hell, the honest truth was, he just couldn’t figure out _what_ Ezra was. 

> _“I assure you, I am entirely human,” Peg Carter had told him archly in her prim British voice, when he’d asked her what the hell she was as she used her healing gift to all but knit his leg back onto his body. “You’d best find it in yourself to keep something of an open mind here, Lieutenant. Your spectrum of ‘normal’ is about to expand quite drastically.”_

He smiled at the memory of her. All right, so it wasn’t what Standish was, it was what he could do. Chris had met a lot of extraordinary people in that medical complex of Erskine’s, but he’d never met a person who could turn himself invisible. It was a hell of a trick. And he had no question in his mind that, for Standish, it _was_ a trick. The man had all but called disaster down on himself in that saloon, just so he could disappear in the thick of it. 

He’d either be the perfect fighting companion in this little campaign, or get the rest of them killed. Or himself… And maybe _that_ was why Chris had asked Ezra to come. Maybe somewhere in his head he was trying to save Standish from himself, just like he’d done for Buck. 

>   
>  _“Ever the savior, yes, Lieutenant Larabee?” Erskine had scolded him with a smile, after that fiasco at the Mexican border. “Perhaps sometimes the fight is not worth it?”_
> 
> _“Fight for freedom’s always worth it, Doctor,” he’d replied, full up with himself and his own Perpetual Stupid._
> 
> _“Indeed,” Erskine said. “But freedom for _whom_?”_

Chris looked down into the valley, seeing the fire that burned all night in the little one-room adobe house where Imala’s wife tended their newborn son. His cries had been quiet, almost shy. Nothing like the hollers Adam had given out in the wee hours of the night. He’d been a colicky baby, and Chris remembered wondering if what they’d done to him hadn’t made him unsuitable to father a child, if there weren't something wrong with the boy as a result. But Adam had weathered the colic and grown to be a fine little gentleman… 

And now he was dead. And Sarah was dead. 

“Doesn't make the freedom of that kid down there any less worth it,” he whispered to himself. 

Chris growled in the darkness, perching himself in a niche between two large boulders, where he could see and not be seen. He didn’t want to think on that. He wanted to know where Tanner was. He would have expected him to be watching from the highest vantage, but there was no sign of him. Chris took a deep breath and opened his senses, worry nagging at him as he failed to hear anyone else on the ridge with him. 

He’d about decided to rouse the others when he heard a tremendous flapping of a bird, sounding unnaturally loud and huge in the black before sunrise. With it came the now-familiar smell of Vin Tanner, and Chris eased out of his hiding place, moving toward the two sensations as curiosity crawled under his skin. 

If Standish’s talents had surprised him, what he found behind a rock not forty yards distant from where he started left him in awe. Vin Tanner stood, shirt off and back to Chris, with wings the color of buckskin, sprouting from his back as natural as breathing. 

“My God,” Chris whispered, unable to stop himself. 

At the sound, Vin whirled—his wings whirling with him before they snapped neatly closed along his back, stretching above his head with the longest feathers, black as night, hovering just above the ground. The look of terror in his eyes was unmistakable, and his hand was on the butt of his sawed-off rifle in its holster at his hip. 

“I ain’t gonna hurt you, Tanner,” Chris assured him quietly. He snorted with calculated mirth. “Hell, you’d probably fly away before I could get a shot off.” 

Vin didn’t move for a long moment, all but collapsing into himself when he did. “Didn’t figure I was quite up to explaining this yet.” His shaky voice was trying for normal and failing. “Ain’t something you mention on casual acquaintance.” 

“I don’t think any of us met on casual acquaintance, Vin,” Chris told him seriously. 

It took a minute more before Tanner found his voice again. “Yeah, I didn’t think so either,” he admitted. “Hell, even that Dunne kid is like a moth to the flame, ain’t he?” He eased his hand off his rifle and reached down to pick up his shirt. “Guess I’m just hoping we don’t all get burned to cinders.” He shook his head in annoyance. “You aiming to catch flies there, Larabee?” 

Chris realized he was staring, but he couldn’t stop. “Seen a lot of people do a lot of things in this life, but…” Peg Carter’s words rang in his head again and he blinked. “Reckon this has come in right handy in running recon, eh?” 

Vin smirked. “Ain’t so much running as flying.” Chris stared again as Vin’s wings twitched and Tanner sighed, turning his back to show them more fully. “Might as well take a damn good look, then. You ain’t gonna see ‘em much.” 

It was obscenely like the feeling Chris had had himself when he’d first been presented to President Polk like some exotic animal, and he backed off immediately. “You don’t have to show ‘em off.” 

The wings rustled again—no, Vin rustled his wings again; they were a part of him, damn it—and then lay them back flat, turning to face Chris with something like gratitude. “Reckon you might be the first white man who’s seen ‘em who didn’t try to kill me.” He shuddered. “Or capture me.” 

Chris nodded. “Indians took you in?” 

Vin shrugged, shivering suddenly in the early morning cold. He brought his wings forward to cover his shoulders like a coat. 

“How do you hide them?” Chris asked abruptly. He realized how rude that sounded and tried to apologize. “I’m sorry, it’s—” 

“No, it’s fine.” The young man smiled to fit the nickname Buck had given him. “Want to see a trick?” he asked. “Ezra ain’t the only magician around here.” 

He unfurled his wings and Chris fought not to gasp at the sheer size of them. They had to reach twelve feet or more from tip to tip. 

“Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna fly off on you.” Vin took a deep breath and bent his wings up—not like -folding them along his back the way he had when Chris first surprised him, but like there were extra joints in them. When he was finished, there was a bundle of neat feathers, nearly the color of his skin, that ran the length and width of his back but no longer. Chris hadn’t thought about the bulk of Vin’s clothes before, but it made sense now. 

Vin shrugged into his shirt and buttoned it self-consciously. “Ta-da,” he murmured. 

Chris figured it might be best if they move on from this, to save Vin’s self-respect. 

“You find anything while you were out and about?” he asked in as normal a voice as he could. 

Vin shot him a look of appreciation. “Not much,” he replied, donning his long duster as well. “They’re smart—probably setting the campfires far enough back in the caves to be hidden. Even from me. Couldn’t see any hot spots.” 

“You can see heat?” Chris asked, trying to keep the question matter-of-fact. He’d had a lot of practice at it when he’d been at the medical facility, but it had been a while. 

“Some,” Vin allowed. “Other things, too. Must go with the wings.” He looked Chris up and down. “You’re worried about Standish disappearing, huh?” Chris knew he didn’t flinch, but Vin explained himself anyway. “I mean, he’s already hared off from trouble once before.” 

“Yeah, about that…” Chris began. He supposed, given what Vin could do, it should be easier to explain. 

“I can see him.” 

There was a long moment of shocked silence before Chris snorted. “Should’ve figured you’d catch on to him.” 

“Almost didn’t credit it when I saw him first,” Vin admitted. “I was about to grab up that rifle in town, to stop that idiot from killing Ms. Travis, and he walked up like a ghost, shoved the guy forward, then sauntered right off, calm as you please.” 

“I knew Nathan hadn’t moved.” It somehow made Chris feel better about Standish. He’d helped when it was important. He’d saved Mary Travis’s life and hadn’t even let anyone know he’d done it. And if Chris was wrong, Vin could always hunt the man down. “You were able to keep track of him?” 

“He looks like a damn charcoal drawing of himself, but yeah.” Vin grinned. “He’s cold as ice. Easy to see.” 

“I’ll take your word for it,” Chris told him. “Hell, I’m damn lucky I don’t need spectacles at my age.” 

Vin gave him a look but didn’t ask the question a normal person would have. “I think we might be able to trust him,” Tanner told him. “Probably more than he can trust himself.” 

Chris laughed. “Buck said the same thing. Said Standish doesn’t know what he’s capable of and probably wouldn’t believe it if you told him.” 

“Yeah, Buck’s right insightful, ain’t he?” Tanner knew there was something about Buck, and Chris should have been worried about that, but wasn’t. “Hell of a crew you got for yourself, Larabee,” Vin joked finally. “I’m guessing there’s a story behind you, too.” 

Chris nodded but since Vin still hadn’t made it a question, he didn’t answer, turning back to the edge of the ridge and heading for his original hiding spot. Vin settled next to him as easy as he could be, given the circumstances, and didn’t push. Together they sat in silence and watched dawn stalk the valley below. 

“So, you know those white men I was talking about?” Vin asked after a while. “There's a little backwater town up in the Texas panhandle. Tascosa. Flatter'n a felt-covered poker table. You know it?” 

“Heard of it,” Chris allowed. The medical facility at Tascosa was a nightmare few escaped from. 

“If I wind up getting killed, take my body back there. You'll get 500 dollars for it.” 

“Ain’t sure Tascosa and I would get along.” 

“Yeah,” Vin said. “I didn’t like it much either. But there’s people there’d pay to get a closer look at everything, if you know what I mean.” He shuddered. “Rather they do it after I’m already dead.” 

The whole idea of someone cutting into Vin while he was alive, just to see how he was made…? Chris swallowed down his gorge. “Vin—” 

“I had a lot of jobs, once I left the People and came back into the white world. I ended up there by accident, if you can believe it. Was chasing down a bounty named Eli Joe.” He picked up a rock and threw it off the edge. “He weren’t exactly what he claimed to be.” 

“They lured you there,” Chris stated, sick. 

“Yeah, well… Reckon one of ‘em might have gotten killed when I was getting out, so… 500 dollars.” Vin turned his head, smiling at Chris with that Devil-may-care about him. “I figure if a friend collects the money, I get the last laugh, right?” 

“Or you could just live through this and move on.” Chris rose, watching the people in motion below, now that the sun was on its way into the sky. 

Vin rose as well and started following him back across the ridge. “Well, yeah. That’d probably be the easier thing to do.” 

“Reckon it would,” Chris agreed. “Do you _know_ how long it takes to get to Tascosa?” 

Vin chuckled. “Only as the crow flies.” 

********** 

They spent another day making sure everything was prepared. Nathan had set up a makeshift medical tent and he’d already had a few suspicious visitors; villagers who’d been injured in the original attack. He sat quietly now, as the sun began to set, resting from the day’s exertions. No one had been badly hurt that first time, but there had been a lot of people needing just a little bit of help, here and there. 

“If you’re planning on saving me from myself when the fight comes, I suggest you let time heal a few wounds.” 

Josiah’s rumbling voice was full of a mirth that it rarely had, and Nathan turned to see him leaning against the rock face that made the back wall of the tent. Like Chris, Josiah had been able to feel Nathan fixing him, that first time when the old man had been thrown through the front window of the rowdiest saloon in Four Corners. He’d been about as drunk as a soul could be, and had still managed to take down a handful of men before they’d done enough damage to land him in Nathan’s clinic. 

> “Now don’t you fight me, you hear?” Nathan scolded, once Yosemite had dropped Josiah face down on the cot. “You got some serious cuts here need taking care of.”
> 
> Josiah grumbled his assent, breathing hard from the pain as Nathan tried to wash away the glass and blood. The old man went still when Nathan took a deep breath and touched the long slice across his back, the one that was bleeding the worst. Where his fingers settled, the bleeding slowed and the flesh began to mend. 
> 
> “A healer,” Josiah had said, still deep in drink. “Too much to expect that your gifts include curing the hangover I’ll have come morning?” 
> 
> Nathan froze a moment before deciding that the man on the cot was just rambling. “You’ll have to sleep it off, I reckon,” he murmured as he went back to carefully knitting the skin together. 
> 
> “The curse of drink,” Josiah had sighed. “Wouldn’t have thought miracles worked on a damned soul like me….” He slid into sleep and Nathan considered his newest patient as he spent more energy than he usually would on fixing up a stranger.

And when Josiah had woken, Nathan had found a friend, one who knew what he could do and didn’t let it change how he felt about him. A damned contrary friend at that. 

Nathan pulled himself to his feet. “Ain’t _got_ the time, and you know it, Josiah,” he said. “If these people want to make it through this battle, we all of us got to be ready.” 

“My point exactly,” Josiah told him. There was that little spark of brimstone to his voice that Nathan had learned to heed. “I noticed Eban’s girl—Rain?—tending the cook fire tonight.” He grinned at the look Nathan knew was on his face. Miss Rain… She was right pretty. “You could give her a hand.” 

“And lose one of my own in the process,” Nathan shot back. Eban was fiercely protective of his daughter—all the women were well watched over here, in fact. “Reckon it won’t be long before I’m sewing Buck back together after one of the men around here takes him apart for making time with the ladies.” 

“Brother Buck does like his time with the ladies,” Josiah agreed. He clapped a hand on Nathan’s shoulder, and Nathan felt an unaccountable urge to find a place to sleep. Just for a while. “Looks like maybe you should forgo the campfire and head straight to your bedroll,” Josiah said, his voice deep and ringing, compelling. 

“Think maybe I should,” Nathan agreed, feeling nearly half-asleep already. Without another word between them, he stumbled out of the tent and made his way toward the small enclave he and the others had been using, keeping their distance from the villagers in deference to their distrust. 

“Beautiful work, my young friends, just beautiful!” Standish’s praise for the children rang out across the clearing, and Nathan looked up to see the Southerner gathering them all around him to see another trick. Lord, he always had another trick, didn’t he? 

“This one is called Vanishing Ace,” he said, producing his deck of cards with a flourish. 

Nathan stopped to watch him, though he knew he needed to find his bedroll like Josiah said—and he dimly suspected Josiah’s gifts might have something to do with that sudden need. How had a good ol’ boy like Standish ended up out here? He didn’t seem to have any problem with the children, Indian, black, or both, though he kept his distance from the adults—especially the black ones. Nathan had to wonder how they could trust the man to fight with them instead of with his own people when the time came. 

“Watch carefully now, children,” Standish said, his voice promising miracles. He held the ace of spades in his left hand, the rest of the deck in his right. Nathan noticed through exhaustion-blurred eyes that the center of the ace had been shot through. Hell of a shot. 

“Remember how I said you must be sensitized to the vibrations of the card?” Standish asked. He waved the ace rapidly, as if fanning himself—and the damn thing disappeared! Nathan blinked as the children gasped. Standish was in shirtsleeves, the ends rolled to his elbows. There was nowhere for the card to go. 

“Where did it go, Mr. Ezra!?” one of the boys cried, as astonished as Nathan himself. 

“Why, can’t you feel it, Akando?” Standish asked, reaching his left hand out near the boy’s ear and fanning a card that wasn’t there anymore. Akando squeaked and pulled away. “I feel it!” he cried. “Like a cold wind!” 

Standish chuckled. “Indeed, young man, indeed.” He clapped his left hand to his right, sandwiching the deck of cards between the two for a moment before handing the deck to the boy. “So, tell me—where is it now?” 

Akando looked at the deck of cards in his hand and turned the first one over, showing it to the rest of them, the bullet hole marking it sufficiently. 

Nathan snorted. “Hell of a trick,” he muttered. 

Standish looked up at him at just that second, and the contempt in his eyes had Nathan turning away in sadness. 

Some things never did change, did they? 

*********  
to be continued…


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning Chris tripled the watch on the ridges surrounding the village and sent Vin up to the northern approach, where he knew his sharp eyes would miss little. The deadline was the next day at noon, but this man Anderson wouldn’t wait that long, Vin was sure. He had come in by force and intimidation the first time, and he’d expect the villagers to do as they were told.

It was a common mistake white men made when it came to the Peoples, Vin had noticed. The white man came into the Indians’ territory, all bluster and superior firepower, and figured they’d just rule the roost. But a bantam could take down your average full-grown cock if you riled it up enough. And these folks were plenty riled.

Vin, by comparison, was calmer now than he could remember being since he’d left the Kiowa. He and Larabee had overlapped their watches this morning, and Chris had finally explained himself. At sixty-five years old, he was an even older soldier than the man they faced, and he had no idea how long he’d live—if he wasn’t shot down and killed in the next couple of days, that was. Vin had never had a white man look at him as he really was and not want something from him: his death, his freedom, his soul… Chris Larabee wanted nothing but friendship and loyalty, and Vin hadn’t even realized he needed that until he had it.

He could feel something coming, and he was sure the others did, too. This fight with Anderson wasn’t just about Anderson, that was for damned sure. It was about the seven of them. Mammedaty, the leader of his Kiowa family, had once told him that his wings were a gift the universe hadn’t decided how to use yet, and that he’d know when the decision was made.

He figured that day was coming pretty soon here.

A human’s imitation of an osprey’s call carried out into the desert from the west, and Vin turned to look, seeing the column of dust that had caused the Seminole stationed there to raise the alarm. He cursed and focused his vision more tightly.

“Damn it, Tastanagi,” he growled, watching as what looked like a whole damn platoon, complete with the promised cannon, rode up on them. He gazed down into the valley, watching the others running to their places. He shucked off his jacket and shirt, glad he’d picked a spot where he couldn’t be easily seen by anyone. He couldn’t take the time to run back down from here.

Unfurling his wings, he dove straight down to the valley floor, landing neatly and folding himself back together, tossing his clothes back on and running for Chris.

“We got problems,” he said, damning himself again for looking in the wrong place. “They must have circled around,” he said, following Chris and Tastanagi to their appointed spot on the roof of the main meeting house. “And there’s more of them than he said,” he stated, glaring at the Seminole chief.

“I noticed,” Chris grated.

Vin watched Anderson and his men come, tattered and tired and truly looking like ghosts of themselves, and smirked a little as Chris turned to Tastanagi. “You said there were twenty of them!” he accused.

“I asked if twenty would scare you.” Damn old man.

“Twenty, no,” Chris barked back. Vin could hear the worry in his tone. “Forty, yes!” He looked over at Vin. “Get yourself to high ground. Fast as you can.”

Vin looked at the cavalry soldiers bearing down on them and cursed. Too damn close to risk it. “I’ll be hoofing it,” he whispered to Chris, and took off running up the trail, hiding in the trees along the way until he’d stationed himself high above Chris’s position. “Damn sure wish I was me and Ezra together,” he muttered to himself, checking his ammunition. Be a neat trick to be able to fly invisible…

******

Chris’s palms were sweating. He hadn’t been this outgunned in a long, long while...

The platoon had arrayed themselves around the narrow opening to the village proper, still all military precision. Good soldiers even if they weren’t necessarily good men. That’d be trouble, no doubt.

A man with captain’s bars dismounted and walked cautiously to the chest they’d left out in the open in the seemingly deserted village. The colonel stayed a-horse, his eyes narrowed, face disturbingly bland. Chris wondered how mobile the man was—he had a brace on his knee and the damn thing was swollen as hell. The captain opened the chest and reached in a hand, lifting out a bit of the booty within.

“Sand,” he called to the Colonel.

Anderson shook his head. “My instructions could not have been more explicit,” he said, quietly enough that only his men should have been able to hear him.

“Oh, you were very explicit, sir,” the captain replied, his accent something Irish, maybe.

“And yet they were not carried out.” Anderson raised his voice into the silence. “I have shot my own men for less!”

“I’ll just bet you have,” Chris murmured darkly. He rose, yellow boy rifle aimed at the sky, but ready to fire.

“Ah!” The colonel’s voice was sharp and superior. “Colonel Emmett Riley Anderson of the Confederate States of America,” he announced himself. “And you are…?”

“There’s no gold here, Colonel,” Chris told him.

“No, of course there isn’t,” Anderson replied predictably. “You’re just here for your health.”

Vin rose from his hiding spot, and Chris tried not to tense up. _Let the men do their job or you’re their papa, not their leader,_ came the old advice in his head. The hunter’s voice rang out calm and clear, not a hint of his usual humor in it. “We came to ask you to leave.”

Anderson snorted. “And this, purely out of the goodness of your hearts?”

Chris watched as Buck stood up from his own blind on the roof of the building that suddenly seemed too close to the guns. “Something like that,” Wilmington averred quietly.

Like damn mushrooms, the rest of Chris’s men showed themselves, all high-up, all cold-eyed and ready.

“How many of you humanitarians are there?” Anderson asked, the amusement slowly leaching out of his voice.

“Enough.” Chris was surprised to hear Standish answer, his clear Southern drawl visibly raising Anderson’s hackles. Then Nathan walked up the stones on the western ledge and Anderson’s face all but lit up with bloodthirst.

“What do you think, Captain,” he asked the Irishman next to him. “You think there’s going to be trouble?”

“No trouble, Colonel,” Chris assured him. “Just ride on out.”

Anderson laughed, and the confidence of it sent chills down Chris’s spine. “Well, I like that! Audacity!”

“Move on, Colonel,” Vin called down. “These people have nothing you want.”

Chris had never felt it so clearly. The world held its breath...

“Shoot them down,” Anderson murmured.

The captain nodded. “Company,” he called, strong and commanding. “FIRE!”

...and all hell broke loose.

********

Josiah liked a good firefight, normally. Normally, a good firefight was all about reaction and instinct and not at all about the headier notions of God and Fate and the intertwining of powers. But this…

The barricades they’d built of stone and stick and rock and hay, fortified by a couple of simple spells Josiah knew would keep the horses from investigating them too closely, held the platoon in the bowl of the valley, allowing the village protectors time to whittle down their numbers.

He had never seen a man fire as many rounds as quickly as Chris Larabee did, the speed impaired only by the need to reload occasionally. Vin Tanner was slower, more in keeping with human ability, but he never lost a bullet, each one burying itself in its intended target. Buck and Nathan kept up a constant barrage, with young JD Dunne providing sporadic backup. Standish’s guns had been as loud and reliable as the rest of them at the beginning, but Josiah hadn’t heard them in the fracas for a while, which didn’t bode well for any of them. Seven was a stronger number than six. Six could be so easily divided...

“Akando!”

The cry of terror jerked Josiah’s attention and his aim toward the woods, where a young boy had clearly been flushed out. As Josiah raised his gun to take aim at the Confederate soldier who stood ready to end the boy’s life, Akando was suddenly airborne, as if tucked under the arm of the atmosphere around him, and disappeared around the edge of the boulders.

_Quicksilver, moving without form…_

Josiah took down the soldier and grinned big, as he felt—but couldn’t see—the strand of gold that connected them all, curling itself around the rocks as one of Standish’s pistols started firing from that quadrant. They were still seven.

A warcry too frustrated to be Seminole surprised him from behind, the bullet that followed the Confederate soldier’s call surprising him even more. His gun dropped from his hand as he fell, but the shock of the wound in his leg wasn’t enough to stop him—he’d had far worse in far worse circumstances. Josiah summoned powers he wished he were ignorant of, and a bolt of unseen energy hit the soldier squarely, knocking him from his saddle for the last time.

In the haze of pain, he heard a different warcry, high and bright. The cry of a people who would fight to have their home safe from intruders whose only desire was gold and power.

He grunted as he grabbed back his gun, pulled himself up, and fought on.

*******

It had been too many years since Buck had last tried to keep track of so many people who were feeling so much. Chris was angry and focused, Josiah and Ezra were both hurt and both so high on the damn fight they probably didn’t care. Nathan was all but champing at the bit to help the bodies that were collecting in the village—Johnny Rebs and Seminoles alike. JD…

Shit. JD was scared out of his God damned mind. And fighting on like a soldier regardless. It took a minute, but Buck caught sight of him, gun out as he fanned the hammer.

“God damn it, kid,” Buck growled under his breath. “Don’t—” He broke off as the pistol did what a pistol damn well did when you abused it like that. It jammed. JD looked up in shock at the advancing cavalrymen, and Buck fired both his own pistols at once, thanking God that Vin or Eban or somebody with a rifle managed to take out the second of the horsemen as he bore down on the young Easterner. The force of the shot shoved the dead man off his horse and into Dunne, who screamed defiance and disgust and shoved the body off himself.

And stood shaking in the middle of the valley, unarmed and vulnerable.

“Get down, you idiot!” Buck called, all the fear he felt from JD fueling his own anger until it was so hot he’d be lucky if he could stop from shooting the moron his own self. “Get the hell to cover and wait it out!”

JD looked up at him, none of his usual bravado visible in that shaken face, and made for the boulders and safety.

“God damned children playing at being soldiers,” Buck grumbled.

Hell, he was pretty sure he’d heard Chris say that about _him_ once.

**********

Ezra listened to the bugle calling retreat, half-lost in memories of the war. He’d heard the call too many times. Didn’t think he’d ever be glad of it.

“Mr. Ezra, you’re hurt.”

He looked down to see Akando staring up at him. He had known when they conceived the damn plan that the children weren’t safe. All it took was one curious little boy to move when he shouldn’t.

 

> When he’d jumped back from the shards of rock that a well-placed bullet had kicked into his face up on the ridge, he’d done something serious to his shoulder. Damned if he knew what it was, but he couldn’t even raise his left arm without wanting to scream. He’d realized in an instant that he wouldn’t be able to fire his rifle one-handed—not from that distance, not with any hope of hitting anything.
> 
> He was tying the damn arm to his side when he looked down and saw the horses approaching the trail that led to the cave where the children hid with some of the older women. He couldn’t use a rifle, but he only needed one arm to fire his Remington. To do that, he needed to move closer.
> 
> He almost didn’t get there in time. Akando was being drawn out and there was no time to think. He felt the silver wrap him ‘round and hide him, and grabbed the boy under his good arm, sprinting back into the safety of the rocks. The sound of a rifle shot and a body hitting the ground let him know one of the others had taken care of the immediate threat. He dropped Akando to the ground and took off for a stand of trees before sloughing off his invisibility and turning right back around. He would never have let the boy be harmed, but there was no reason to reveal himself, now was there?
> 
> “I believe I told you all to stay hidden,” he chastised the boy, a grin blooming at the thorough astonishment on the child’s face.
> 
> “I was raised up by the cold wind, Mr. Ezra!” he cried, climbing to his feet but staying carefully behind the rocks as the battle raged beyond them.
> 
> “Be glad the wind was there to catch you, young man,” he said quietly. He pulled out his Colt and looked at Akando speculatively. “Well, as you can see, I could use your help,” he said, handing him the pistol and carefully unbelting his hip holster one-handed, gritting his teeth at the pain. “Do you remember how I showed you all to load the guns?”
> 
> Akando had smiled big and got to work. Ezra had turned to aim his fully loaded Remington through a crack in the rocks and done the same.

“Mr. Ezra?” Akando said again, concern writ large in his eyes.

“I’m all right, my young friend,” he assured him quietly. He looked out at the carnage beyond them. Lord, so many boys in gray. He’d blocked those years from his memory so expertly, he’d thought—promised himself he’d never go to war again. Yet here he stood...

“Akando!”

Ezra turned from the now-quiet field of battle to track the cry. The other children and a handful of the women were heading out from the cave, the young mulatto girl, Ola, in the lead. “Akando, Mr. Ezra told us to stay put!” she scolded.

Akando all but scuffed his moccasin in the dirt. “I wanted to help.” He looked up at her with shock and adventure in his eyes. “The cold wind saved me!” he cried. “Picked me right up and carried me to safety!”

“What was it like?” Ola asked, all chastisement gone in the face of this most fascinating turn of events. “Tell us, Akando! The wind! What was it like?”

Ezra smiled, barely. The war was over now for those boys in gray on the valley floor, but not for _his_ boys. His boys, and yes, by God, his girls, too, were here around him, and they didn’t need to see that kind of horror. Swallowing the pain that shot from his shoulder all the way to the base of his spine and ignoring the fact that he could no longer feel the arm at all, he crouched down so that he was face-to-face with the majority of them.

“Now the battle is won, my little warriors, but you still have a job to do.” He nodded to the oldest of the children. “It is up to you all to assure the safety of these women.” One of the older women, Mamami, smiled at him in understanding, though she frowned when he grunted as he rose, staring at the leather strap that held his arm in place.

“You should see your friend Nathan,” she told him. “We will help the children.”

“Of course,” he said politely, sliding his useless rifle into the crook of his equally useless arm and moving out. He didn’t finish the thought until he was well out of earshot. “When Hell freezes over.”

*******

Chris looked around as the sun began to wane, trying to forget a hundred other battlefields. Tastanagi walked up, flushed and tired. “Your people fought well,” Chris told him, a feeling nagging at him that they’d be fighting again before long.

The chief smiled at him. “We fight well together.”

“We whupped 'em good, old pard!” Buck crowed as he sauntered up. Chris nodded to him, glad as always to see him in one piece.

“Maybe,” he allowed. “Get up on that ridge and keep a lookout.”

Buck shook his head. “Hell they ain't gonna stop running till they hit the Rio Grande.” But he started to move out all the same.

Vin walked up and caught Chris’s eye. Chris nodded, but stopped as he saw JD heading toward them, looking high on the battle. But there was blood all across his chest. Chris wondered suddenly where the others were...

“Are you all right?” he asked JD seriously. He’d seen too many young men so caught up in the action that they didn’t notice their hurts until you pointed them out. Buck had stopped and was watching, a look in his eyes that said he knew more than he was telling.

“Yeah,” JD answered blithely. He followed Chris’s gaze with his own and seemed to get stuck a moment on the stain across his houndstooth coat. “Oh…. It's not my blood.”

Which appeared to be Buck’s cue to light into the kid. “You're damn lucky it isn't your blood, son,” he growled. “Now, you don't fan your guns. Ain’t just that they’ll jam on you—spoils your aim. One good shot is better than six bad ones.”

Chris put a hand on Vin’s back, trying not to recoil as he realized that, even through the layers of linen and buckskin, he could feel the wings now he knew they were there. He let himself focus instead on the words between JD and Buck as he and Vin moved away to talk privately.

“Anything else?!” JD demanded. His voice held a desire for acceptance along with the anger.

“No, that's about it for now.” Wilmington’s held both censure and worry, and Chris smiled at that. Buck always was one for picking up strays.

“You have something?” Chris asked Vin as Buck and JD walked off in different directions.

“I’m pretty sure I hit Anderson,” Vin replied, sounding not nearly as happy about it as he probably should. “A couple of times.”

Chris sighed, remembering seeing the colonel jerk hard to the side in his saddle once during the firefight. But the old soldier had kept his seat and continued firing. “Looked pretty spry as they left. What’re you saying?”

“I’m saying…” Vin shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Saying maybe you ain’t the only one gonna live forever out here.”

“Could just be he was too damn hyped up to notice,” Chris said, not wanting to credit the possibility. Because it was there, and he knew it. Erskine, Samson down in Tascosa… They weren’t the only ones playing God. “I saw a rig on his knee—he’s already injured. Would be a hell of a coincidence if there was another person like that floating around in this.”

“You mean other than us, Buck, Ezra, and probably JD and Nathan, too?” Vin asked with an easy grin.

Chris shook his head, fighting a smile. Vin had a humor about him that was hard not to get caught by. “Other than us, yeah.”

Vin nodded, but not like he was convinced. Neither was Chris, damn it. “Well, here’s hoping I’m wrong.” Tanner holstered his sawed-off rifle, tying it in tight. “I’ll head off on foot ‘til the sun sets, then go on up. Take a look around.”

Chris wondered what Vin looked like in flight. “Stay high,” he warned. “I’ll see what we’re left with around here. See if we can’t shore up the place against the next attack.”

Vin nodded and moved out, and Chris looked around at the adobe houses, riddled with bullet holes already.

Damn it.

He turned, looking for Buck, who was collecting his horse to head out. “Buck!” he called, waving him over. “Send one of the Indians up there instead. We got work to do.”

*******

There was an irony somewhere here.

Not an hour ago, Nathan had thrown this knife and killed a white man who was intent on shooting as many villagers as he could, and now he was using it to heal one of those self-same villagers. Imala lay quietly on the table, teeth grit against the pain, and nodded at Nathan to go ahead and do it.

It didn’t seem fair that the healing gift couldn’t somehow make a person stop feeling the hurt while he cut into him and pulled out the bullet, but he’d tried to figure out a way to do it for the whole damn war and then some and hadn’t been able to. All Nathan could do was use the knowledge he’d learned at the side of those army doctors to take out what he couldn’t heal around. Sometimes you could leave a bullet in and heal the person up, but it usually did more harm than good, if the lead was easy to get at.

He watched Imala’s face as he got hold of the bullet with his forceps and dropped it into the bowl of blood and cotton strips that Rain held out to him. The brave’s eyes were cold with distance as he tried not to hurt. Tried to be the strong man his people needed him to be.

Nathan knew he had many more bodies to heal today, but he couldn’t help but give the man a little push. He held his hand over the wound a long moment, saw the pain start to recede, the ease reflecting in those dark eyes. He couldn’t heal him all the way—never had been able to. Josiah had reckoned once that if Nathan managed to get that far, it might take all he had. Said God wouldn’t want him dying to save another.

Nathan figured one day, it was going to be worth the risk. But today, with a village full of warriors and a team at his back, he was better served speeding healing where he had to and doing it the hard way where he didn’t.

“You honor us, Nathan Jackson,” Imala murmured to him. “I am proud to fight alongside you.”

“Wish we could all do a little less fighting,” Nathan replied, nodding to Rain to start bandaging him up. “Reckon maybe we’ll get a chance to rest some now.”

Not as long as they’d need, though. He’d seen the anger and scorn in Anderson’s eyes. The sense of betrayal that folks like them was still alive after all he and his men had done to end the freedom of colored people. He’d be back.

“Nathan?”

JD sounded worried as hell and Nathan looked up as Dunne and Standish helped one of the older Seminole men into the tent. He was listing and half-unconscious, and his shirt was stained all over in too much blood. They sat him down on one of the pallets, and Nathan heard Ezra stifle a gasp as he rose. The Southerner had his arm strapped to him, the shoulder low and deformed.

“Let me see that arm,” Nathan offered. Never had mattered how much a person might hate him for being black, the gift demanded that he try to help. Even when he might have wanted to do differently.

“It's fine,” Standish replied, his voice thin and shaking. “I just bruised it when I fell.”

Nathan shook his head. He’d seen this before. Didn’t even need no healing and wouldn’t take a minute. “No, no, no, that ain't no bruise, now,” he said, reaching out. “Let me see.”

Damn Southerner jerked away and looked at him like he was a viper waiting to strike him. “I said it's fine,” he growled.

Man was going to lose use of that arm for good, and there was that angry, bitter, disappointed part of Nathan that wanted to let him. He raised his hands in surrender. “Suit yourself,” he said mildly.

Standish turned away from him and Nathan grabbed the man’s shoulder firm, yanking the bones back into place. Ezra whirled, anger and something more like fear than disgust flashing in his eyes as his fist sped toward Nathan’s chest, stopping short so that the hit was barely a tap as he realized he could move his left arm again.

Nathan smiled at having shocked the man in some positive way. “Just like I thought, you dislocated it.” Standish moved the limb gingerly, in pain but looking like he’d deny it. “Might be sore for a little while but at least you have two hands to cheat at cards with.”

If he had been expecting a thank you, Nathan would have been disappointed, but he wasn’t. Standish just looked at him in shock and stumbled out of the tent and away.

“God didn’t give you the gift so they’d love you,” he muttered, repeating the words Old Hettie had said to him when he was a child. With a sigh, he headed out to take care of the rest of the village, leaving the gambler to himself, as healed as the man would probably ever let himself be.

**********

Ezra flexed his shoulder and fought the shakes that took him as he climbed back up the ridge. He hadn’t felt the buzzing his father said he had, when the healer touched him, but… No. He was all right. He was all right. He moved the arm again, relishing the pain. Pain meant maybe Jackson hadn’t done anything at all. Maybe he was fine.

“Let’s see what we can do about shoring up some of these fortifications.”

Chris Larabee’s voice drifted toward him from the valley below, and instinct took over. He wrapped himself in silver and moved back from the edge, watching Larabee and Buck Wilmington survey the scene. He prayed Larabee couldn’t smell him up here. He wouldn’t face them with the shakes, off-kilter. _”Only show them what you want them to see, Ezra dear,” his mother used to say. “After all, you have your God given gifts to hide the rest, now don’t you?”_

“Gonna take some work,” Buck replied, looking around. “Ain’t sure who’s up to what right at the moment.”

Chris nodded. “Everyone accounted for?” His voice hardened. “Didn’t hear Standish being too much help.”

Ezra narrowed his eyes and moved closer to the edge.

“He was hurt at some point, but it couldn’t’ve been too bad,” Buck explained, as if he could have seen what happened. “He was firing there at the end. I think he might’ve been more hyped on the damn fight than JD was.”

“I don’t need him hyped up, Buck, I need him _backing us_ up.” Larabee shook his head. “I know you think he can be trusted, but….” Ezra’s heart clench. “I don’t know. Something about him.”

“He doesn’t inspire a whole lot of trust, does he?” Buck said with a smile, slapping Larabee on the back. “But, then, you were the one who added him to the collection, weren’t you?”

“Don’t remind me,” Chris replied. He looked around the area with a tired sigh. “All right, let’s go find out where the hell everybody is and how many we still got to work with.”

As they moved off, Ezra allowed the silver scales to fall and stared down at their retreating backs. A sad smile broke out and he shook his head. Well, it wasn’t anything more than what he expected of people, was it? He was a conman. Nothing more.

“There’s more at stake here than your precious ego, Ezra,” he reminded himself, thinking of the gold he’d come to get in the first place. “And at least Mr. Larabee will hardly be surprised when you leave.”

It somehow didn’t make him feel better.

*********

Josiah looked around at the wounded and wondered again why God had brought him here. He couldn’t minister to these people. He had no right. But something called out to him and he knelt beside one of the dying, swallowing a scream at the pain in his leg. He knew he’d have to get it looked at at some point, but he was walking, moving. Nathan had a lot more people who weren’t doing either just now. Let him deal with them first.

Eban knelt at the man’s other side, looking tired and helpless and angry.

“It was a good fight,” Josiah told him. Not that it would help. Strong and sturdy as Eban looked, Josiah saw clearly that death shadowed the former slave. It wouldn’t be long now.

But longer than it would be for the boy who lay at their knees. Josiah had heard them call him Nokosi, “bear,” but he was little more than a cub. Hell, he wasn’t a whole lot older than their own John Dunne.

Nokosi spoke words in his own tongue, and Eban answered. Josiah understood the sadness and the caring, if not the words.

“He’s asking if he’ll see his mama when he gets to the hunting lands,” Eban explained quietly.

“She’ll be waiting for you, I’m sure,” Josiah told the dying man. He was lying—he wasn’t sure. He just hoped real damn hard. “Now rest easy, friend.”

Nokosi was all but gone by the time Nathan could get to them, and Josiah saw his friend’s soul dip a bit at the knowledge. Jackson wasn’t old enough yet to realize that he couldn’t save everyone. And that sometimes, he shouldn’t try. Nathan dropped to the ground beside Eban and lifted the bandage from Nokosi’s chest.

Josiah looked into the dying man’s eyes and smiled at him. Let him see kindness and comfort in his last moments. “Whoever your God is,” he told the boy, “you can go to him in peace.”

“Leave him!”

Powerful hands yanked Josiah to his feet, and the world spun hard around him, graying out the sky. Anger, bright and pure and cold lanced him through the words—he didn’t even know who held him. “We don't believe in your white man's religion.”

Josiah would have laughed if he had the energy. “Nor do I, friend,” he gasped, wondering where the village was going. Certainly somewhere far from him.

“Nathan!”

Josiah was falling.

“He’s been hit.”

He wondered if it was some sort of holy joke that the angry hands that started his fall were the same ones that caught him—

“I can see that. Move out of there, Imala. You done enough already. Now give me room!”

—but as his body's descent was stopped, his mind's continued into the mists, where the answers he no longer sought still looked for him... 

> _Age driven mad by immortality, a power as old as its years. It approached, studied, attacked. Destruction and sorrow were sure to follow. It had been the way of things since the first couple left Eden. No one, no matter how exceptional, could change it._
> 
> _Quicksilver melted into cracks and crannies in the wind as the power descended, unseen and unimpeded. The numbers were wrong now, and six would not be enough to stop the hell they faced._
> 
> _The tawny bird took flight, terror in its wings. The skies were to be feared now, as it flew, exposed to the mayhem. And of course, because it flew, it fell, screaming an almost human cry as it spiraled into the desert sands._
> 
> _But out of those sands rose something huge. Something powerful. Many whirlwinds, strong and wily, rose together, blending, separating, joining again. He couldn’t count them all. He couldn’t see how many swirled toward the madness…_

“...gonna make it?” Chris Larabee’s voice held a grim worry, and Josiah smiled as he realized it was for him.

“Looks like the bullet went clean through but he lost a lot of blood.” Nathan sounded exhausted. If he was smart, he hadn’t wasted too much energy on a crazy old man like him…

_Age driven mad…._

Josiah opened his eyes and stared at the tent stretched above him. Tastanagi’s lined and weary face appeared in his field of view and a weathered hand clasped his.

“Why didn't you tell us you were hurt?” The old man’s words were chiding.

Josiah grinned. “You didn't ask.”

“Your birds lied, Josiah,” Chris said, looking down at him with eyes that were years older than his face. Josiah had never noticed how old the man’s eyes were. _A power as old as its years…_

“We shall see,” he replied. He breathed a moment, too tired to do anything else. “Anderson’s mad, you know?”

Chris’s eyes tightened. “Yeah. Vin’s trying to track him now. Got everyone keeping watch.”

Josiah nodded, his eyes closing of their own accord.

“Rest now, Josiah,” Chris told him. “We’ve got things covered.”

 _For now,_ he thought muzzily. The world went pleasantly silent and he reveled in it until he felt the soft, urgent power that was Nathan, probing carefully at the fire in his leg.

“Leave it,” he told the younger man, opening his eyes to see the predictable argument on his face. “Time heals, brother.”

“Time nearly killed you, old man,” Nathan griped. “What the hell were you doing, walking around with holes in your leg? Damn near bled to death.”

“But I didn’t,” he said gently. “I’m sorry I scared you.” Because really, that was the point of this.

Nathan sighed. “Damn it, Josiah,” he said quietly. “I know I can’t save everyone—God knows you say it to me enough, but… I _have_ to be able to save you.” Josiah almost laughed as Nathan struggled with his understanding of the energies building around them. “Hell, I guess all your talk of warriors and seven men and such has rubbed off on me. I’m beginning to think something’s going on around here.”

He did laugh at that. “Just beginning, huh?” he asked mildly. He struggled to rise. “Well, I guess that’s a start.”

“No,” Nathan barked, shoving him back down with more force than he usually used. “Now I’ll let you off on some better healing, but you’re going lie down here and let that time pass, you got me?”

Josiah grinned. “You are a bossy cuss, Nathan Jackson,” he told him, relaxing back and closing his eyes again. “I’m glad to know you.”

“Shut up and rest, old man,” Nathan muttered fondly.

So Josiah did.

*******

Dusk saw no further sign of Anderson and his men, and those who could do, were celebrating. JD sat on one of the benches outside the main meeting hall and drank his way through his own personal bottle of whiskey, trying to forget...

> _The man on horseback wore a long white duster—the cavalryman’s hat tight on his head as he came, gun up, eyes on his. A spray of blood blossomed from his chest as he was unseated, falling, eyes still staring, as if to take him into the afterlife—_

JD took another long belt. God, the taste of the stuff—bitter and biting and harsh. Harsh.

“Is he all right?” Chris Larabee whispered to someone nearby. _He_ never would have failed like that. He wasn’t a freak who couldn’t control what he did.

The pistols hadn’t jammed because he fanned them. _They_ hadn’t failed _him_. His mind had just stopped the bullets, like somewhere inside him, he was afraid to fire. Afraid to kill someone up close.

“Wasn't like them dime-store novels, was it?” God, was Buck never going to stop giving him advice? What did he know anyway? “Reckon you didn’t think about the cost, did you?”

“I didn't count on seeing their eyes,” he admitted, the whiskey loosening his tongue. He needed more. Whiskey.

Buck’s voice went soft and understanding. “Well, if you can see their eyes then you're too close.” Didn’t keep it up for long though. “And you never break cover. You stand in front of bullets, you're likely to die.”

Alcohol and anger fueled his mind, and suddenly, the little knife from JD’s traveling kit was buried in the adobe beside Buck’s head without JD ever moving a muscle.

“You done, Buck?” he demanded, feeling sick in the face of Buck’s astonishment. Chris rose, and JD wondered vaguely if Larabee was going to shoot him. Kill the freak before he killed one of them by accident.

“I think you need to slow down a little bit, son,” he said, reaching out for the bottle.

JD let him have the stuff, not quite drunk enough not to be afraid of what he might do if he got any drunker. Didn’t make him any less angry, though. “I’m _not_ your son!” he growled, jumping to his feet. “What in the hell gives you the right to tell me what to do?!”

Chris looked at him a long moment, then at the knife in the wall, and up and walked away. JD just shook.

“He had a son once,” Buck said quietly, in a voice that was as sad and lonely as JD felt when he thought of his ma. “Never had a chance to see him grow up, though. He lost that boy, and his wife, in a fire and that burned half the soul out of that man. So maybe you want to credit that he might just be looking to see you live a little bit longer.” He pulled the knife out of the wall, handing it back to JD like he was handing him his trust back. God, he could have killed Buck…

“Buck, I…” He looked down at his hands. “The knife—”

“Josiah,” Buck greeted the old preacher loudly, giving JD a significant look that said they’d talk about that later, away from other ears. “You still with us?”

Josiah grunted, limping his way over to them. “Scoot on over there, Buck,” he said as he sat down beside him. He picked up the bottle JD hadn’t even realized Chris had left behind. “I'm a spiritual man,” Josiah told them seriously, contemplating the bottle. “But sometimes, I turn to the wrong kinds of spirits.”

He downed half the rest of the whiskey at a go and threw his head back and laughed. And somehow, strange and wrong and just plain odd as that was, it made JD feel at home for the first time since he’d left Boston.

Maybe that just meant he’d had more whiskey than he thought.

*******

Vin landed with a rustle of feathers, far enough away from the Confederate camp to make sure no one saw him. He hoped. He’d found the camp finally an hour ago, not in caves, but nestled in the darkness of a crevasse, almost invisible from the air and damn near the same from the ground if you didn’t know where you were looking. There was a great vantage point right near the top of the rock wall, though, almost a nest for him, and he’d been circling high, waiting for the sun to go down so he could slip in there.

He darted into the shadows in the cliff face and curled his wings around him. If anyone looked up and could actually see him in the uncertain light, at this range a normal man would see the hawk his wings resembled.

He moved about a little, trying to get a good look at the whole camp and damning Anderson for being so good at this. They couldn’t ambush the place even if they wanted to. There was nowhere close to the camp that a person could make an approach without exposing himself.

Unless he had wings like a hawk, Vin corrected himself with a grin. The grin dropped away. These men had been at this war too long—a decade too long, in fact. They’d attacked women and children like it was nothing. He shivered to think what would happen if he was found, like this. God only knew what they’d do to him.

He shook off his fear and gripped his rifle tight and watched.

There were two large tents, one being used to hold the wounded and dying from the look of it. The flaps were closed, obscuring a normal view, but there were ten warm and four cooling bodies in there—seemed likely that, come the next battle, they’d be dealing with a few less soldiers. The second tent was empty—or at least cold—and since there were half a dozen men huddled miserable and tired round the two campfires, he figured that was where the sound soldiers would bed down when they got around to it.

“GET OUT!”

Anderson’s violent yell directed Vin to the third, much smaller, tent, and he watched a man stumble out, looking beaten and cowed. Anderson followed him, limping something fierce, a brown bottle of what looked to be laudanum in his hand. He was shirtless, blood trails a clear sign of fresh wounds to his left arm and right flank. Vin cursed. God damn, he didn’t want to be right about that, but it looked like Anderson was too much like Chris. He was moving too damn well, even with the leg, to be a normal person, healing-wise.

Put a hell of a twist in this fight, didn’t it?

“Isn’t there anyone here that can dress a damn wound!?” Anderson screamed.

“Both our medics were killed, sir,” explained the Irish captain—Corcoran, Chris had said his name was. Sounded like he was right used to talking Anderson out of his madness. “The men are doing all they can for our wounded.” He swallowed, and said something Vin couldn’t hear from where he was. Wished he had Chris’s ears, just for a minute.

Vin slid off the ledge he was on, flying down to one that was closer to the ground, as he tried to hear what they were saying. The canyon walls acted like a listening horn, but it was still hard to make it all out.

“I will not be denied our victory, Captain,” Anderson growled. “We’ll meet them again. Man the approaches,” he demanded, stumbling hard with that leg. The knee looked swollen and putrid, the skin bright red where the man’s breeches were stretched tight enough to see through. The heat coming off of it made Vin wonder how long it had been since the wound had gone gangrene.

Corcoran walked away from the tent, heading for the fire, as Anderson hobbled back inside.

“Captain?” One of the soldiers approached Corcoran cautiously. “Sir, the Colonel—”

“It’ll be a few days at least, until we’re strong enough to retaliate, Corporal,” Corcoran replied, sounding like he was heartily sick of the fight. “Tell the men to rest. I’ll try to talk to the Colonel.”

“For all the good it’ll do you,” Vin whispered. The man was insane, it was plain to see. Insane, and healing up so damn fast it was like magic…

He retreated to that first ledge, spreading his wings and taking flight. Despite the danger, he reveled, as always, in the freedom of the air, driving high into the sky and catching the thermals. The stars seemed more plentiful up here. The air sweeter, thin and perfect…

Damn shame he couldn’t fly like this all the time.

The fear took him again as he spiraled slowly down toward the Seminole village, eyes open and searching for danger. Memories of knives and chains and pokes and prods seemed to always plague him, and he could never forget that he hadn’t even seen Eli Joe coming the night he’d been taken. He wouldn’t be caught like that again.

He landed on the ridge above the village, dressing and heading down into the party, smiling at the people as he passed. A very different reception than the day they’d ridden into town.

Chris was sitting with Tastanagi and his kid and grandkid, and Vin stumbled a minute as the thought hit him that Chris wasn’t really much younger than the man who looked old enough to be his father.

Hell of a world.

“Chris,” he called quietly, nodding a greeting to the Indian chief. “You got a minute?”

Chris said his farewell and fell into step with Vin as he led him away from the rest of the village. They passed one of the smaller buildings, and Vin spied Ezra doing more card tricks with some of the older boys. Looked too serious to be having fun, and Vin figured he wasn’t the only one.

*******

Ezra had spent the afternoon trying to forget the look of worry and concern on Nathan Jackson’s face. People like him didn’t _actually_ care. They weren’t any better than the grifters and conmen with whom Ezra had spent his whole life. The only difference being that Jackson’s con could kill. “Healing gifts” was just so much garbage.

Except that it seemed Jackson had helped him without trying to _fix_ him. He flexed his arm, still feeling the pain and soreness and reality of the injury. An injury Jackson had wanted to help with, any way he could.

> _”My little man, I do believe I_ am _feeling better.” His father’s voice, clear and calm for the first time in days, set young Ezra to giggling. “Didn’t Nana tell you those healers had a way of fixing what’s broken?”_

Which had turned out to be God’s cruel joke when the elder Standish dropped dead a week later.

Ezra shook it off and smiled at the children in front of him. With Anderson and his men vanquished, he could concentrate on why he was really here. He could use those gifts God had given _him_ to make his way in the world, once he was left orphaned and his mother widowed. She’d taught him well to read a mark, and Ezra had always had a way with children.

“Your fate is in the cards, gentlemen,” He told the trio of boys who sat on the ground before him. “Remember that.”

“What's my fate?” Jirna asked, his eyes warm and eager.

Ezra turned over the card before him without bothering to look at it. The actual figures on the pasteboard hardly mattered in a game like this. “You shall grow to be a great warrior,” he told him. “Big, strong, and fearless.”

“Like you.”

Time froze for just a moment, and Ezra felt a stab of something bitter. _“Didn’t hear Standish being too much help.”_ No, not like him.

He directed their attention to the world outside their little space. “There are two kinds of people in this life, my friend: those who seek battle and seem not to fear death—” He gestured to Chris and Vin as they walked past. “—Like them. And those who avoid battle but will stand and fight to the death if their loved ones are threatened—” He gestured to Imala and his wife, coddling their babe while his grandfather looked on. “Like them. _That_ is true courage.” He swallowed hard and forced a jovial note into his words. He was neither of those kinds of people, but what he was, he was with all his being. “Now... you have lost to me at poker and I have read the cards for you. The time has come to pay.” The boys looked confused, so he explained. “You see... I've heard tell of a gold mine in these parts.”

Jirna shook his head. “We're not to speak of it.”

Of course they weren’t. “Well, good,” Ezra replied, approving. “Then it is a valuable secret.” He swept a hand over the table without touching it. “One such secret could wipe out all your debts.” He opened his arms to let the boys climb up on him.

“So... let's talk about this mine, shall we?”

**********

Chris shook his head. “I was really hoping you were wrong,” he said quietly, looking out at the villagers as they relaxed, unaware. “I only ever saw one man who was born to it naturally. Seen a lot of others driven mad by the medicines, though… Scary ain’t the word.”

“He’s damn sure been driven mad by something,” Vin agreed. When he spoke again, he was as curious as a child. “How do you think he got that hurt to his knee? Shouldn’t he have healed?”

“Depends.” Chris found himself unconsciously rubbing his side. “I got caught in an ambush down in Texas once,” he said quietly. “Explosion ripped through the camp and I was knocked unconscious. When I woke up, the whole squad had been wiped out and I’d been left for dead with a length of pipe from one of the cannon rigs stuck through my side.” He looked up to find Vin’s eyes on him, slightly sick around the edges. “I’d healed around it—they had to cut all the way through to get it out of me.”

“You’re saying he’s got something stuck inside him?” Tanner shook his head. “Hell, that might drive me mad, too.”

“Wouldn’t lead you to kill a village full of innocent people, though, would it?”

Vin grinned. “No, I reckon it wouldn’t.” He sat in silence for a long moment. “So what the hell are we going to do, then?”

Chris rose, looking around for Buck. “We keep a tight watch and bide our time. These people aren’t in shape to take the fight to him. We dig in and wait.”

_And hope he doesn’t bring hell down on us before we’re ready._

******  
to be continued...


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Sorry for the delay. There were sick kids and work deadlines and... life. You know?
> 
> Anyway, [The Super AU Bible](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6179227) is up and ready for perusing. Please write supermagnificents if you feel so inclined.
> 
> ALSO!! ALSO!! Fara has written a fabulous missing scene that you should read before this one, since it slots in exactly HERE in the storyline. It's called [Fool's Gold](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6247165), is Chris/Ezra, and is utterly FABOO! I mean it. Go read it!
> 
> Then come back here, because this part is not too bad, either. I think :).

Dawn was still about an hour away, and Buck and Lady had made exactly fourteen turns around the area since Chris hunted him down last night and sent him out to patrol. Nothing was happening—at least not this morning.

Well, nothing was happening out here, anyway.

He could still feel the wind of it rush past his ear as that knife came at him, propelled by the kid’s anger and shame. JD hadn’t moved a muscle—hadn’t had to. Buck had seen the flash of understanding in Chris’s eyes and known, without a doubt, that JD Dunne hadn’t meant to do it. It was instinct, pure and simple and frightening. Like his pistol on the ridge, he realized now, and Imala’s knife…

“Damn,” he whispered into the growing dawn. He couldn’t imagine having something like that inside you. Something that could kill without you meaning it to, just ’cause you were pissed. Probably should have sounded stranger than it did, but Buck had been friends with Chris for a long time. He’d heard stories of people who could do a whole hell of a lot more than just throw a few knives with their minds.

And more than that, he’d figured out the seven of them. He was willing to bet they were _all_ different, like he and Chris were different. Specialized, sort of. He didn’t know how they all fit together yet, but he’d figure it out. Starting with JD Dunne.

He heard someone leading a silent horse lightly up the path in the predawn light and drew his gun, holstering it immediately when he felt the tightly controlled emotions of Ezra Standish. As far as he could tell, Standish had three states: amused as a child, annoyed as a mama, and mysterious as all hell. He was almost harder to get a bead on than Vin.

“About time you showed up, Ez,” he greeted him as the gambler and his mount approached. Standish looked like he was thinking deep thoughts and there was a thread of stress and anticipation in him. “Thought I’d have to kick you out of your bedroll this morning.”

Ezra glared at him without heat. “Why I am expected to leave that bedroll at such an hour is beyond me, Mr. Wilmington,” he said sleepily. “I expect at the very least, the Colonel and his boys are licking their wounds for a bit.”

Buck nodded, feeling pretty much the same but too used to Chris being right to let down his guard. “Maybe. Figure we got a couple of days, anyway.” He sighed. “I can’t quite get why Chris don’t just take the fight to Anderson and have done with it.”

“Yes, well, I expect few people can ever understand the mind of Chris Larabee, can they?” Ezra asked. There was a weird bundle of envy, self-doubt, curiosity, and yearning in the man when he said it. Lord, Ezra Standish made Buck tired!

“Damn right about that,” he agreed. He clapped Ezra on the left shoulder, letting go when the gambler flinched hard. “Sorry, Ezra. Forgot you’d been hurt.”

Ezra shook his head, his hand going to his shoulder. “It’s nothing,” he lied. Was funny to see a conman lie so very badly.

“Still bothering you though, ain’t it? You should get Nathan to take a look,” Buck said, stopped suddenly by a wave of anger and distrust from Standish that was downright primal. Buck shook his head, annoyed by the man’s bigotry. “You know, I thought you were a better brand of Southern than Anderson and his men,” he said coldly.

Fear, loss, anger, confusion, love, pain, and sadness lashed out at him and he almost took a step back to get away from it. And all the time, Standish’s face remained impassive.

“My feelings on Mr. Jackson have been, and continue to be, my own, Mr. Wilmington,” he said quietly. “I assure you, they have no bearing on our current campaign and will not affect my actions in the least.” He met Buck’s eyes with fire in his own. “And I will thank you to take your comparisons between me and that monster Anderson elsewhere.”

Buck closed his eyes, trying to get that confusing jumble of feelings out of his mind so he could think. He’d misread Ezra, clearly—which wasn’t his fault. Damn man was so hard to figure out! Still…

“I’m sorry, Ez,” he said quietly, watching Standish’s eyes widen in surprise at the apology. “Just saying we need to work together, the seven of us. Put aside whatever problems we each got and focus on the job.”

“Which I will happily do if you will let me get on with my patrol,” Ezra told him, ice in his tone.

Well, he sure wasn’t winning the Southerner over this morning, Buck thought sadly. He tipped his hat and walked over to where Lady was snacking on a tuft of desert bush. “Keep your eyes open,” he counseled, gathering up her reins. “Anderson ain’t the sanest, and those men of his follow him blindly. No telling when they’ll show up.”

Ezra just nodded, unwilling to accept the olive branch. There wasn’t anything else to do but leave, so Buck did. He walked his horse back down the trail toward the camp, figuring to get a bit of sleep before he sought out JD and tried to figure out what was going on in that boy’s brain. He was nearly to the village when he realized he wasn’t going to get the chance to take a breather.

He tied Lady’s reins to a tree and followed the sound of metal clinking on rock until he came upon a sight that had him shaking his head in amazement.

JD Dunne stood beside a long flat rock, so much focus in him that Buck was held spellbound. On the rock sat a collection of empty cans, a knife, and one of the boy’s guns. The cans rose eerily into the air, one by one, up a few inches and down again with a quiet clank. The knife came next, but not as easily, like the boy’s mind was afraid of it. He sure as hell felt afraid to Buck.

Smiling at JD’s intensity, Buck made a bit of noise to give JD a heads up. The cans scattered and the knife spun crazily off the edge of the rock. Buck was impressed, though, to see the gun jump through the air directly into the kid’s hand, cocked and ready on instinct.

“Whoa,” he said, all easy friendship and surprise. “Don’t shoot, now. It’s just me.”

“Buck, dang it,” JD muttered. He holstered his gun and looked at the rock and the cans, trying to figure out a reason he should be out here. “I was… just going to get in some target practice,” he said lamely.

Buck was running out of patience, but the boy’s fear—of discovery and of himself—was urging him to go slow. “I reckon shooting off your gun first thing in the morning is a good way to get yourself killed around here,” he said, reaching out to pick up one of the cans and set it neatly on the rock. He reached down and retrieved the knife, holding it out to JD with a look of open acceptance on his face. “I’m thinking you know a better way to knock ‘em down, huh?”

JD knew exactly what he meant and he was terrified. And angry. And damn, the kid had more shame in him right now than anyone should. “Buck, I didn’t mean to…” He looked at the knife, refusing to touch it, though Buck could feel it wobble in his hand. “I was mad, you know?”

“Yeah, kid,” Buck replied softly. “I know.” He kept the knife but studied the cans. “You can move ‘em all, huh?”

JD snorted in disappointment. “Sometimes. Only metal things, though—and it ain’t exactly easy.”

Buck remembered years of standing in a crowd trying to block out the intimate feelings of a hundred complete strangers. “Nothing worth having ever is.”

Dunne dropped down onto the rock, scattering the cans with his butt and not his mind. “It’s not worth anything. I’m just a freak.”

“I figure I’d’ve been stuck real good with Imala’s knife if not for you. Ain’t sure I’d call you a freak for that.”

JD looked up at him in surprise and appreciation, but his eyes quickly fell. “And then I nearly took your head off.”

Buck sat next to him, bumping his shoulder. “So maybe you don’t drink so much in the future.” He pocketed the knife and picked up another can, holding it out on his palm. “What do you say you show me what you can do?”

He felt the boy’s heart lighten and excitement bubble through him as the can rose from Buck's palm without shaking. He smiled big at JD.

Things might just work out all right around here.

********

Ezra made five circuits around the village, each one a little farther out, a little closer to where the boys had told him he’d find the cliff with the large stand of mesquite that hid the entrance to the mine.

Anderson wasn’t coming today. At the very least, not midmorning. He had time to check out the mine. See what he could see…

Something like shame ran through him at fleecing this particular set of rubes, and he rejected it, thinking about Wilmington’s assumption that the fact that Jackson was black would be the only reason for Ezra to refuse to go to him for help. And Tanner, with his penetrating looks, as if he knew Ezra must be hiding something. Of course he was hiding something—he was a conman, after all. As far as Larabee was concerned, he certainly wasn’t worth much, was he?

Well, no, perhaps not. Perhaps he really was what they all thought he was, but was that so wrong? He wasn’t a hero like Larabee or a crusader like Buck, but…

But?

He shook his head, annoyed to be so confused. It really wasn’t that hard, was it? _It’s not as if you’re doing anything wrong, darling,_ his mother had told him when he was a boy. _If they were smarter with their money, they’d still have it and you wouldn’t._

He snorted. He supposed it was some consolation to know that he was smarter than a bunch of Indian children, wasn’t it?

“Oh, please, Ezra,” he muttered to himself, as Chaucer climbed toward the top of the hill that should overlook the mine. “You are exactly who you are meant to be. God wouldn’t have given you the power to disappear if He didn’t mean for you to use it.”

And he would, he thought, a shot of avarice buoying him up as he looked down into the next dip of landscape to see the stand of mesquite and the timbers that it hid so badly.

Something more than what he had. And it was right here for the taking. He’d survey the place, perhaps secret away a bit of the gold to be retrieved later, and then, once Anderson and his men had been dispatched, a judicious pilfer of the place and he and Chaucer could disappear into the desert sun…

*******

Chris had slept his usual few hours and risen at dawn. Every other morning since they’d met, Vin seemed to have been in the skies, but he was still sleeping when the sun came up, so maybe the extended recon of the night before had worn him out. Buck was missing still, and JD, too. He hoped Ezra’s empty spot meant he’d taken over Buck’s patrol.

Vin woke readily enough as the rest of the village started stirring a few hours later. JD and Buck appeared together after a time, and Chris smiled at the boy’s markedly more relaxed demeanor. Buck, fixing things as usual…

“Figure we got the day to recover?” Chris asked as Vin walked up to him, stretching awkwardly and making Chris think he must want to stretch those wings out, too.

Vin shrugged, scouting around with his keen eyes. “Don’t know,” he replied shortly. “Not sure I’d be planning on it.”

“Me neither,” Chris agreed. Josiah was cooking something up at one of the fires. Smelled like it might be edible. “What are you cooking?” he asked the big man as he approached.

“Beans and bacon,” Josiah replied, standing up from his crouch with a groan for his bones. “Should be ready in a couple of hours.”

Chris nodded to Vin. “We’ll be back in time to eat, then.” He looked over at Buck as he wandered over, minus the kid. “Ezra on watch?” he asked, trying to sound like he trusted the man.

Not that he could possibly fool Buck with something like that. “He’s doing fine, Chris,” Wilmington said, though something was off in his tone. “Ain’t an easy man to get a read on.”

Vin snorted. “You can say that again. Slippery as a snake.”

Chris shook his head. “We’ll circle around to the north,” he told Buck, “just in case—”

The concussion of the cannonball that rammed into the dirt not twenty feet in front of them knocked them all to the ground, and Chris looked around to make sure they all got up. The cloud of smoke from the cannon was visible on the bluff across the way.

“How the hell did he get them moving again so fast!?” Buck yelled, looking around and counting heads himself.

“Get your people to safety,” Chris called out as Tastanagi ran toward them. Anderson didn’t have but eighteen men left. No need to put the villagers at risk when—

The house where Imala’s family had been tending the child exploded outward in a shower of adobe and stones, causing Tastanagi to cry out.

“They’re there!” Vin yelled, spying Imala and his wife and child, sprinting away from the back of the building, toward the sheds that fronted two small caves in the rockface behind the village. Damn little cover, but they’d take what they could get.

“GO!” Chris yelled, shoving Vin toward the shelter, helping up one of the villagers who’d fallen in the chaos and running himself. How many cannonballs did Anderson have?

As the ground shook once more, and he heard Rain scream for her father, he realized it didn’t matter. He’d already done too much.

“No! Daddy!” Rain’s horrified cries followed Chris into the shelter, and he saw her, being all but carried by Nathan as she tried to turn back to retrieve Eban.

Buck looked a question at Nathan as they entered, but the healer shook his head sadly, searching around in a panic. “Where the hell is Josiah?!” he asked. JD and a few more villagers tumbled in and the kid ushered the women back. Seemed he could keep a level head when the situation called for it.

Vin had taken up position at the door, rifle drawn though he’d have no chance to use it in this chaos. “There—helping one of the boys.” Another cannonball fell and Vin cried out in anger before relaxing a fraction. “They’re getting up.”

“God damn it, where the hell is Ezra!?” Buck yelled. Chris could see the fear and pain and grief winding the man up tight. He was suddenly less than sure that they could get out of this.

“Might be they took him out first,” Vin pointed out quietly. But not like he believed it.

_Or maybe I was right not to trust him, and we’re all dead because of it,_ Chris thought, cringing as a cannonball slammed into the cliff, far too close to them.

Josiah tumbled in, a boy in his arms and blood running down the leg he’d been shot in the day before. His eyes were glassy, and Nathan handed the uninjured child off to someone, laying his friend flat.

“Rest easy, now,” Nathan told him, as Josiah started shaking. Chris saw the healer make a decision and tear open the leg of Josiah’s pants, his hand laying against the blood and his eyes closing. He’d done a lot of healing yesterday. Chris wondered if he had enough in him for this.

“Seven guns… One destiny…” Josiah’s words were quiet, but the power of them rang in the little cave. Even Tastanagi felt it, and looked up from where he was comforting his daughter-in-law. “Seven…”

“Ain’t got time for your mumbo jumbo, old man,” Nathan mumbled, swaying a little as his hand stayed flat on the wound.

“Out of one whirlwind, many,” Josiah continued. It was like he was in a trance. Chris shook himself as the cannonade continued. “Out of many, one.”

“Gonna be many pieces, if this keeps up,” Chris groused. There had to be some way to turn the tables. “If we could get someone up on the ridge,” he mused quietly.

“There’s no way to get past that damn cannon,” Buck told him coldly. “Anyone trying to get out would be cut—”

Chris looked at his friend as Buck fell silent, staring at Vin with a dread so thick in his eyes... Vin must have decided to do something stupid, and Buck must have felt it. Chris swallowed harshly as Vin locked eyes with him.

“What’re you aiming to do, Tanner?” Buck asked, low and worried.

********

The bluff around him shook, and Ezra knew exactly what the sound was—God knew he’d heard it enough when he was young. Cannon fire. From directly above him. Lord, the mesa top looked right down into the village. With a good cannoneer, they could crush the place.

Crush the people.

>   
>  _The town of Hanning Junction, Virginia, was just so much rubble, and Ezra fought down the urge to vomit._
> 
> _“A fine job, men,” his colonel said, smacking him admiringly on the shoulder. “Precision and thoroughness. That’s what will win this war.”_

Ezra stumbled in the dust as the cannon continued its work. He should have seen them coming. He _would_ have seen them coming, if he hadn’t been checking out a worthless mine, caved in and played out years ago.

They’d all be killed.

On instinct, he ran for Chaucer, leaping to his back and spurring him up to the top of the hill to survey the valley, hoping no one was paying attention to his approach, low and close to the bluff. The village was smoldering. Imala’s home, the meeting house… A hand full of bodies littered the area, and he thanked God he wasn’t close enough to identify a one of them.

He flinched as the cannon fired again. Anderson was razing the place. He wouldn’t leave a single wall standing. A lesson, like Colonel Farraday had made of Hanning Junction during the war. There was nothing Ezra could do. Shaking, he turned Chaucer away, pulling out his flask and drinking half of it at a go.

_You could go back and see,_ a foreign voice of courage spoke in his mind. _Help if you can._

Heroes helped, not him. Not a conman whose claim to fame was the ability to run from any situation, slink into the darkness unseen and unrepentent. There were two kinds of people, right? Heroes and Champions.

“And then there’s a third kind,” he whispered to himself, heading into the desert, just as he’d planned, though empty of gold or glory...

He was never meant to have more than this anyway.

********

Vin settled his shoulders, the bulk of feathers on his back twitching, though only Chris knew it. The man was terrified, Chris could see. Not of the fight, no. Of flying out into it. Of being exposed.

“We can find another way, Vin,” Chris said, though damned if he knew what the hell that way would be. The only other ace they had had was Standish, and he didn’t know if Ezra was alive, or dead, or in the wind somewhere.

“Ain’t another way, and you know it,” Vin said, holstering his rifle and tying it down tight.

Chris shook his head, denying the truth. “Tastanagi,” he called. “Is there a way to get out the back of this cave?”

“What the hell is going on here, Larabee!?” Buck demanded, Vin’s terror clearly reflected in his own eyes. He didn’t even know what he was afraid of.

“There is only a chimney at the back,” Tastanagi said, pointing into the darkness behind them. “But it cannot be climbed.”

“Terror in the air,” Josiah whispered in his state. "Feared and fearing."

Vin chuckled nervously. “You ain’t doing much to inspire me, Preacher,” he said. He looked at Chris with a wordless pleading, and Chris wished again that there was another way. Unless...

“Can you carry a man?” he asked suddenly, the other way coming to him clearly.

Vin thought for a long moment, then broke out in a smile. “Might take a bit to get you all up there, but yeah.”

“Chris, God damn it—” Buck cut off at the crazy smile Chris knew was on his face. “You been holding out on me, haven’t you, old dog?” he asked, with the beginnings of a relieved grin.

“Nathan,” Chris called, not bothering to answer. Nathan looked up from where he was tending Josiah, now in the regular way, the wound in the man’s leg fully healed. “Can you leave Josiah with someone here?” Chris looked the healer over. He looked tired, but workable. “You up for this?”

“I don’t have the least idea of what ‘this’ is,” Nathan growled in annoyance. “But Josiah’s coming out of it. Give him a minute and he'll be up for it, too.”

“He's done this before?” JD asked, speaking for the first time and sounding ready for the fight.

“Damn fool takes a fit like this every occasional,” Nathan admitted.

“He sees the truth,” Tastanagi said.

“Or a fair version of it,” Josiah replied, his voice suddenly clear and eyes sharp as he sat up. The cannon slammed its ordinance into the cliff and Josiah winced. They’d be buried eventually. “Do we have a plan?” he asked, as if he hadn’t just been spouting nonsense a few minutes before.

Chris couldn’t help but laugh. He gestured to Vin to lead the way to the back of the cave. The rest of them followed, and Chris watched Vin steel himself to do what needed to be done.

“It’s just us, Tanner,” Chris promised softly, looking at the four men beside him, standing confused, but waiting for orders. Tastanagi had somehow known to keep the rest of them back. “Ain’t gonna risk bringing any of the Indians out with us. We done this to them. It’s our fight.”

Vin nodded, stepping into the middle of the chimney’s bowl, where sunlight spilled down on him from a hole that should fit them without a problem.

“Who first?” Vin asked, shucking his coat and still refusing to look at any of them, save Chris.

“Buck,” Chris decided suddenly, nodding to his old friend. “He’s a good shot long-range. Buck, once you’re up there, you get a bead on that damn cannoneer, but don’t fire until we’re all out.”

Buck and the rest of them stared at the hole in the ceiling, damn, damn far above. “How the hell do you think we’re getting up there?”

There was a loud rustle of feathers, and five pairs of eyes jerked down to stare at those fascinating wings. Vin was standing in the light, wings half-open, his stance defying them to cross him. At the same time, he was all but panting in fear, and Chris wondered suddenly if this was the best idea.

“That’ll probably do it,” Buck said, just the right amusement and compassion in his voice. Chris blessed his old friend as Vin let loose a chuckle and a little smile of relief.

“You sure you can lift me, Mayhem?” Buck asked, walking toward Vin carefully. “You don’t look strong enough to carry off a fox.”

Well, now, that was just a challenge, wasn’t it? Vin blinked, narrowed his eyes, and swooped forward like a hawk grabbing his prey. Buck let out a yell as he was caught around the waist and lifted rapidly toward the circle of light. Chris kept his mouth shut with an effort, remembering Vin’s comment about catching flies. But, damn, it was a sight.

The other men stood staring after them in silence for a long moment before JD spoke.

“I’m next.”

*******  
to be continued...


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Apologies for the delay. We're getting on toward the end here, my friends. I'm thrilled to see so many people enjoying the ride with me!
> 
> I love to read your comments and to know that you're thinking all the things I wanted you to be thinking :).
> 
> More to come before the weekend, but after that, there may be another wait. THANKS FOR READING!

The chimney let out right behind one of the lookouts they’d been using just the day before. The spot was well-protected and looked down on the bluff where Anderson had set up his cannon. It was a stroke of good luck Buck wasn’t willing to examine too closely.

He had his rifle trained on the toothless cannoneer and had just about stopped shaking by the time Vin flew ( _flew_!) back up out of the hole and deposited JD next to him. The kid started to let out a whoop and Buck reached out his free hand to slap it over his mouth.

“Keep quiet, boy,” he hissed. “Sound carries out here in the desert. Ain’t like that big city of yours back home.”

JD’s indignation flared for a brief second, so overpowered by elation and fear at the flight up here that it was nearly unrecognizable.

Vin crouched by the chimney outlet, looking out toward Anderson’s camp. He was panting a little, but he _had_ just carried two men the equivalent of the length of the valley, so Buck guessed that stood to reason.

“You okay, Tanner?” he asked quietly. Though Buck could understand why a man like him would want to stay hid, Vin's initial fear about them finding out about him had dwindled, thankfully, and he was back to being mostly unreadable. His drooping wings said it all, though.

Wings. Damn. It was going to take a while to get used to that one. A man who could take a handful of bullets and live was one thing, even a kid who could move metal with his mind, but _wings_?

“Just give me a minute,” Vin replied, breath easing. “Figure I’d better bring up Josiah next—ain’t sure I could lift him after the other two.”

“Reckon that’d be best,” Buck agreed.

“How many cannonballs they got left, you think?” JD asked, kneeling next to him. Buck knocked his hat off and the kid glared. But he left the damn thing on the ground, which was the important thing.

Buck shook his head. “Too far to see—”

“Not many,” Vin answered confidently, his wings snapping more tightly to his back and sticking out against the ground as he crouched next to them. Maybe he had bird eyes to go with those wings. “Figure they’ll send in a ground force soon.”

“You’d best get moving, then, hadn’t you?” Buck teased.

Vin smacked him on the shoulder and dove head-first into the hole again.

“Dang,” JD whispered, impressed.

Buck chuckled. “Hell of a thing, ain’t it?” He looked JD over. “Bet you don't feel so much the freak now.”

JD looked out at the bluff beyond them, as Anderson’s men let loose another ball to shake the rock beneath them. “Wings are a lot more helpful than moving around a bunch of tin cans,” he said steadily.

They knelt there side by side as Josiah and Vin came up, the old man landing lightly on his feet. Buck watched as Sanchez surveyed the area, cool as spring rain. You'd think it wasn't the first time he'd flown.

“The morning we set out, I saw a sign in the sky,” Josiah said, his voice all common conversation as he gazed at the bluff across the way. “A tawny hawk with wings tipped in midnight, diving toward the village.” He glanced briefly at Vin. “It was the reason I came.”

Vin smirked, shifting his wings a little and showing off those dark, dark feathers at the ends. “Yeah?” he snorted. “Birds, huh? Can’t trust ‘em.”

“Go on back down and get the rest of them, Mayhem,” Buck called over Josiah’s quiet laughter.

Vin gave him a half-assed salute and dove in again.

*******

Chris made sure he was the last to go up, watching and waiting and making sure that the rest of them were safe. Anderson had slowed his barrage, but Chris had to wonder whether there’d be anything left of the village when this was all over.

“Imala has gone.”

Chris whirled away from the hole in the ceiling to see Tastanagi standing in the tunnel behind him. “What?”

The chief actually looked chagrined. “He is young.”

“And foolish,” Chris gritted out. He heard the sound of wings above them and turned back to watch Vin return, head first to begin with, then righting himself and spreading his wings full to slow his descent (Lord, watching that was never going to get old, even given all he’d seen in his life). Tastanagi whispered something in his own language, almost reverently, and Vin ducked his head.

“I’m no Soaring Soul, Tastanagi,” he said quietly, his voice breathless with all the work he’d been doing. “Ain’t as special as all that.”

“Perhaps you are more special than you think,” Tastanagi responded solemnly. “The wind has blessed you.”

Vin just nodded, like there wasn’t much else to say.

Chris didn’t have any idea what they were talking about and right at that moment, it didn’t matter. “Imala’s gone,” he told Vin. “Probably ducked out in all the chaos and headed for Anderson.”

“Damn.” Vin took a deep breath and looked at Chris. He was flagging, it was plain to see, the stress of carrying so many men, one after another, taking its toll. He’d swept down on JD the same way he’d done with Buck, sort of tackling each of them from the back under the arms and then launching into flight. Josiah and Nathan seemed harder, and he’d had to launch himself a bit before he caught them, grabbing on after he was already airborne.

“I’m gonna have to take a running jump at you,” Vin told him, indicating where he needed Chris to stand. “Ain’t got it in me for a straight lift right now.”

Chris was amazed he’d managed to do as much as he had already. “Whatever you need.”

At that Vin smiled that crazy smirk of his and Chris suddenly wondered what he’d gotten himself into. “Remember you said that,” he told him, swooping up toward the chimney exit until the cavern narrowed around him.

The sight of him was incredible. Vin flapped his wings carefully in the confined space, but the sheer size of them created a breeze, and the fact that Chris was watching a man who could _fly_ was almost more than he felt he should be able to handle, no matter what sage advice Peg had given him years ago. He wasn’t sure his definition of normal could expand quite this much.

“I won’t drop you,” Vin promised, the seriousness of the pledge tightening Chris’s gut.

Before he could ask what the young man meant, Vin swooped down on him from the height and grabbed him hard, his feet never touching the ground. Chris swore he stopped breathing as Vin completed the dive and soared back up toward the hole that suddenly looked way too small.

But it wasn’t, and the flight was over in an instant. Vin set him on the ground and collapsed tiredly against a rock nearby, snapping his wings flat against his back and breathing hard. Chris was too, and probably shaking more than he should be.

“Hell of a ride, huh, pard?” Buck called, laughing at him, damn it. Yes, he’d been just that little bit terrified, but Buck didn’t need to rub it in.

And besides, there were more important things to deal with. “Imala snuck out in all the noise,” he told them all. “He’s got to be headed for Anderson.” The cannon had finally fallen silent, which meant Anderson would be moving out anytime—probably right down whatever track Imala would be taking. And Imala might be thinking the old Colonel would be an easy kill...

“God damn,” Buck gritted, turning back to the bluff he’d been staring at for half an hour. He started scanning the face of it through his rifle scope, Josiah doing the same. “Would he climb it? Hell, _could_ he climb it?”

Vin stood up and walked over to them, his shirt in his hand as he got ready to fold his wings away. “There’s a trail, see? He’s there,” he said quietly, pointing to a dark shadow moving slowly through the light ones that marked a cut in the rocks. “Shit,” Vin whispered. “Anderson’s man is right ahead of him!”

Chris couldn’t see the Confederate man, but he’d seen Imala moving up the trail. “One of you, see if you can get a bead on Anderson’s man. Pick him off, if—” he broke off as Vin dropped his shirt and launched himself into the air. “VIN!”

“Where the hell is he going?” Buck asked, as if he didn’t already know the answer. He sighted back down his rifle, looking for the man only Vin had been able to see. Chris watched the sky, watched Vin soar toward the bluff, faster than he’d’ve thought the young man could fly.

“I see him,” Josiah said calmly.

“Take your shot, then,” Chris replied, wishing he had a spyglass.

Josiah began to mumble something soft under his breath at the same moment that Vin opened fire with his mare’s leg, the guttural sound of it bouncing back across the valley. Imala stopped his climb and Chris fancied he could see the shock on the brave’s face from here as he looked up to see Vin swooping in. Imala fell back and Buck cursed.

“Imala’s down,” he informed them, eye to his sight. “Moving, though.”

“Get out of there, Vin,” Nathan whispered. “Just get the guy and—”

A pistol fired somewhere in the shadows on the bluff, and Vin wheeled away, trying to find safety. Josiah’s mumbling stopped abruptly as he fired. He must have been praying for a clean shot, because he got it, a sharp cry of pain, longer than maybe it should be, signaling the man’s demise. Josiah bent his head and closed his eyes, and Buck reached out to place a hand on his shoulder. Why the shot had disturbed the man, Chris didn’t know, but that was Buck’s job, anyway. Always had been.

“Just get Imala and get out of there,” Chris muttered, wishing he could make Vin hear him. The longer he was in the air, the more likely he was to be seen by more of Anderson’s men.

Imala was climbing again—slowly now—as Vin flew back toward him, and Chris thought, maybe, they might make it. But just as Vin’s enormous wings all but obscured their view of the young brave, a volley of shots was heard and Vin jerked away from the bluff, one wing clearly hit. The gunfire kept coming, rifle and pistol alike, and Vin tried to push himself higher into the sky, that left wing weak, causing him to spiral slightly as he rose.

Josiah was mumbling again, while he and Buck tried to hit the soldiers who had appeared on the trail above Imala, drawn into the open by their desire to bring Vin down. There were four of them, and three fell quickly though Chris wasn’t sure he’d heard Buck and Josiah fire more than once, each. Before they could fire again, though, the fourth raised his rifle and Vin arched his back in midair, his cry cutting off as he began to drop far too rapidly, his wings folding in on themselves and completely failing to break his descent.

“Oh God,” Buck whispered, shock and pain in the words.

Chris knew he didn’t hear a shot fired by his own men this time, but the last gunmen on the opposite bluff screamed loud and fell silent.

“Why isn’t he catching himself?” JD wanted to know, voice quiet and devastated. “Come on, Vin, stop!”

“Looks like he’s unconscious or…” Nathan didn’t finish and didn’t need to.

Chris could say nothing, as Vin fell, quickly lost from sight in the nooks and crannies of the valley’s edge.

******

When Ezra was ten, his mother worked a riverboat with a paramour and partner who was much more pleasant than the one who had helped the young boy discover his trick four years previous. Aces MacReady was a quiet, jovial man from Ireland, and he had a way with both woman and cards that made him quite an attractive catch for Maude Standish.

He was also one of the few to know Ezra’s secret, and the only one to take an interest in just how far it could go.

> “Can you wrap it around other things?” Aces had asked. “Other people?”
> 
> “Other people?” Ezra replied, puzzled. “Why would I want to make _other_ people invisible?”
> 
> “Well, what if you and your mother were to run into trouble somewhere? Trouble you couldn’t get out of—”
> 
> “Mother can slip out of anything,” Ezra averred with the certainty of the very young.
> 
> Aces grinned indulgently. “But what if she couldn’t?” he repeated. “You’d hardly let her get hurt, would you? Not if you could stop it?”

Ezra pulled Chaucer to a halt, trying to shake the memory. The cannon had stopped a moment ago—whether for lack of ammunition or lack of targets he truly did not wish to know—and he dimly heard gunfire instead. Someone was still there.

He thought about the feeling he’d had since riding into Four Corners. Something had been rushing toward him—rushing toward all of them. He didn’t want to know what it was, because that would mean acknowledging connections that were always— _always_ —more a liability than an asset. But even out here, running away from men who were too busy to follow him, he couldn’t shake the sense of pursuit.

_You’d hardly let them get hurt, would you? Not if you could stop it._

_No,_ he mused, shocked at himself, _perhaps I wouldn’t, after all._ Screwing up a courage he was entirely unsure he had, Ezra turned Chaucer around and headed back toward the bluff. What he was going to do when he got there, he had no idea, but if he could help…

He’d likely just get himself killed, which would be ironic, he supposed. A confederate cannoneer killed off fighting a Confederate Colonel?

Sadly, he’d seen stranger things happen.

More gunfire erupted and he looked up to see a huge bird, wheeling in the sky near the bluff. _Why in the world would you waste ordinance shooting at a bird?_ he wondered. But that was clearly what they were doing, as the bird jerked, screamed an almost human scream, and began to fall like a stone, its descent taking it closer and closer to Ezra himself.

It seemed to regain control of itself before it hit the ground, the wings fanning out to slow its descent. It landed awkwardly in a pile of feathers nearly a hundred yards in front of him, and Ezra found himself staring at it. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t… wasn’t a bird at all. Too large, too…

He rode forward to investigate, freezing as the… as _Vin_ raised his head, pain writ large across his face and his—oh dear God, his _wings_ , crumpled and disarrayed around him.

“God damn, Standish,” Vin grated angrily, voice thick as he panted in pain. He sat up gingerly, one wing tucking behind him in a way a bird’s wing never could, the other splayed at his side. “Where the hell’ve you been?”

Even if he had had a good answer, Ezra couldn’t possibly have found the breath to voice it. He was completely captivated by the reality of the man before him. Vin’s upper body was naked, his right side shot through at what looked like a very bad angle. That left wing was twisted by his abrupt fall and some of the feathers were ruffled, broken… and covered in blood.

The sight of the spray of red that stained the light tan feathers at the top of Vin’s left wing spurred Ezra off his horse and to Vin’s side, but… “I have no idea what to do, Vin,” he admitted kneeling beside the other man. He’d dressed a bullet wound before, certainly, but never on a bird.

“Got an extra shirt in those saddlebags of yours?” Vin asked, clearly hurting. He looked down at the hole in his side. “Whiskey’d be good, too. _Damn_.”

Ezra pulled out his flask and handed it over. The two-dollar shirt in his saddlebag gave him pause for all of fifteen seconds, before he pulled it out. Money was, indeed, money, but life was slightly more important.

“Gimme half,” Vin mumbled, exhausted by more than blood loss, it looked like. “Thing in my side’s not so bad, but I can’t reach the wing properly.”

The words froze Ezra in place again. _The wing._ It was more than a reasonable person should be asked to accept... He suddenly chuckled. A man who could call up silver from his very skin to hide him from the world had no cause to talk, did he?

“Something funny, Standish?” Vin groaned, pressing half the shirt to his side and frowning at the inappropriate response.

“Just musing about people in glass houses,” Ezra replied quietly. His hands held the other half of the shirt and hovered over the entrance and exit wounds in Vin’s wing.

“You ain’t gonna hurt me any more than bleeding to death would, Ezra,” Vin groused angrily.

Bleeding to death might not be as much of a stretch as it seemed. It was amazing how much blood was running from the holes, long trails of it staining the feathers all the way down his wing, front and back. Ezra carefully pressed the shirt against them and Vin cursed roundly, but swallowed hard.

“Keep pushing,” he encouraged through gritted teeth. “Damn thing bleeds like a stuck pig. Got to get it stopped.” They were silent for a long moment as Vin examined his side again. “Lucky shot hit a rib. I think it got stuck there.” He hissed as he tried again to stop the bleeding. “Blacked out from the pain of it for a second.” He grinned. “Guess I should be glad I woke up enough to land, huh?”

Ezra nodded, trying not to sound too shocked. “I’d hate to think what an even more abrupt landing might have done for you.” That sounded quite controlled, he thought proudly. _“They don’t get to surprise you, darling,” his mother would say. “Even when they do.”_

“Uh huh,” Vin responded, seeming to concentrate on his work. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said quietly. “Where the hell have you been?”

Ezra kept his eyes on the blood that soaked through the shirt, knowing his hands were shaking despite him. Vin would never have been shot if not for him. “I…” He straightened his back and prepared for the worse. “Mr. Tanner, I—”

“Never mind,” Vin said suddenly, as he looked Ezra full in the face. Ezra refused to raise his eyes, but had to wonder what the winged man saw. “Don’t matter. Long as you’re ready to get on back there and help us take down Anderson.” He glared until Ezra had to meet that penetrating gaze. “You got something that’ll give us an advantage. Figure we should use it.”

“Advantage?” Ezra said, feigning ignorance. It was more habit than considered response—he already knew Vin’s secret, why should it matter if Vin knew his?

Tanner smirked at him. “Sure,” he said, gasping as Ezra pushed harder on the wounds, praying they’d stop bleeding soon. “They’ll never see you coming.”

******

Nathan cursed as they ran down the trail to the south of the village. Once Vin was… after he fell, Imala was taken up to the bluff. They had no idea where, or what was happening to him, but there was no way they were letting Anderson keep him. The world felt vaguely off-kilter with Vin—and yes, even Standish—gone. The whole operation seemed even less likely to succeed.

They ran for the bluff, still hoping to get there before Anderson and his men started down. Before they killed anyone else.

A shot rang out, and Chris grunted, falling hard to his knees, then to the ground. They all slid to a stop, and Nathan knelt beside him, ripping Chris’s shirt open. The bullet had gone in on the right side, a mirror wound to the nearly healed one on his left, but deeper. Maybe fatal in a man without Chris’s ability to heal. Nathan steadied himself, ready to help that healing along.

“Let it bleed,” Chris whispered, so quietly that only Nathan could hear. “Put on a good show and maybe they’ll leave me here to die.”

Nathan didn’t nod, didn’t do anything to show he’d heard. He just tore the shirt more, letting the blood tell the tale. “I need something to stop the bleeding!” he cried out.

A dozen guns cocked in the woods around them. “No need for that,” Corcoran said quietly, stepping on to the trail, his fellow soldiers appearing around him. “Surrender now, or the rest of you can die where you stand, as well.”

Buck shook his head, teeth gritting in anger as they were all disarmed. Nathan wished there was a way to let him know what Chris was planning—to let him know Chris was going to be okay. “You son of a bitch.” Buck looked down at Chris, who seemed to be fading before their eyes. The wound really was bleeding more than it should. Nathan hoped it wasn’t more than Chris could survive.

Corcoran had been too long at this war to even blink. He stared at Chris like he was nothing and motioned to two of his men. “Bring him. The Colonel wants to have a discussion.”

“He’ll be discussing with a corpse if you don’t let me bind up that wound,” Nathan growled. Whatever plan Chris might have had, it clearly wasn’t going to work.

“Shut up, darky!” one of the soldiers cried, the butt of his rifle slamming into Nathan’s skull and driving him to the ground beside Chris, who appeared to have passed out.

Nathan started to struggle back to his feet, murder on his mind.

“Nathan,” Chris whispered quellingly. His eyes were open to mere slits but his almost silent voice was strong and clear. “Just wait it out.”

 _Wait it out,_ Nathan thought bitterly, letting them drag him to his feet. _That’s what my daddy used to say before me and the girls ran North. “Wait it out. Things’ll change.”_ He yanked his arm away from the man who held it. He would walk on his own two feet to his execution. _Things haven't changed a damn bit._

*********

Vin tried not to move his wing, but of course, the very air had other ideas, catching the throbbing mass of feather and bone and torquing it hard. The bullet had gone right through what he thought of as the wing’s wrist, and the joint was so swollen that he couldn’t close the damn thing on his back. His right wing was folded flat, of course, but all that did was rub his feathers against the wound in his side.

He’d sure as hell been a lot more uncomfortable in his life, but it didn’t make right this second any better. His mare’s leg rested on his knee as he sat on a rock, waiting for Ezra to finish taking his look around.

Ezra. Hell, what was he going to do about that? It was clear Standish had been running out on them, but it was equally clear to Vin that the man was tortured by the decision. Might even have been coming back on his own…

It wasn’t like Vin had never been so scared of a situation, so afraid for his own life, that he’d contemplated running—hell, he’d taken wing a time or two himself before turning around and doing what needed to be done. He just hoped the others would see it that way, too.

Which made him think about the seven of them—assuming there _were_ still seven of them. There was something pushing them together. Mammedaty would say the sky had blown them together…

 _Out of many, one…_ Funny how Josiah’s nonsense about whirlwinds didn’t seem so crazy now.

Ezra crested the hill and Vin watched him come, black and white and blurred slightly, like an artist had smudged his sketch. The scales of charcoal vision fell off as he approached, revealing Ezra’s bright red coat and sweating visage beneath, and Vin smiled at the determination on the man’s face. Looked like he was doing what needed to be done, all right.

“They’re moving our men to the camp at the top of the bluff and gathering the villagers in front of the meeting house,” Ezra said, a tremor in his voice. “Mr. Larabee has been shot.” He swallowed. “It looks bad.”

Vin figured it wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked. “So we get up there and get them out, then worry about Tastanagi and his people.” He stood, grimacing at the air that caught his injured wing again and pulled it back. It was bleeding again, of course—his wings bled worse than anything. The only way to bandage this one had been to rip out a fistful of feathers so Ezra could tie the shirt around the arm of the wing—something that had left him shaking in pain and Standish green as soured milk. “I’ll find myself a place to stay hidden, and you can, you know… stay hidden.”

Ezra shook his head in discouragement. “I fear it will take more than my talent for remaining unobserved for us to get them free.”

Vin nodded. “I was sort of hoping you were good at picking locks, too.” He smirked without malice. “You seem the type.”

“I would be offended if you weren’t so utterly right,” Ezra replied with a smile that showed both dimple and gold tooth.

“Let’s get on up there, then,” Vin said, trying to gather his strength. He looked at the trail ahead of them and sighed. Damn, he was tired.

“Mr. Tanner?” Ezra asked quietly. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Vin muttered, putting one foot in front of the other. “Bluff didn’t seem so tall when I could fly it.”

******

Josiah let himself be led, wondering what God was playing at this time. He’d known he’d be dead by the end of this campaign, but he thought God might at least allow him to save a few men first. Lighten his damned soul before the final weighing.

Instead, the soldiers had marched them up the trail, passing the bodies of the men he’d brought down, each man’s chest burned in a strange circular pattern, each face contorted in a rictus of pain that only added to his burden. The spell was strong and he could still see the power of it on the bodies. The last man burned brighter—that one had been pure vengeance for Vin’s demise, and Josiah couldn’t find it in himself to be too repentant for it. Perhaps he didn’t deserve God’s grace after all.

“What happened to them?” JD had asked in a low voice. His answer was a rifle butt to the back, and he fell mercifully silent again, as the march continued.

Now the five of them, Chris slung insensate between two soldiers, were made to sit on a long flat rock, covered by half a dozen guns. Imala was already there—alive, thank God—and watched them come. He was chained hand and foot, bleeding from a bullet wound in his leg, and his shoulder had started bleeding again where he’d been shot the day before. But his eyes were bright and vengeance-filled. The soldiers dropped Chris to the rock and Josiah saw another sin tallied against Anderson in the young brave’s mind.

The Confederates had set up a proper camp on top of the bluff, complete with a small tent, presumably for Anderson. At the edge of the camp, hidden from the village below by a blind of boulders, sat the cannon. They had only a handful of cannonballs left, but Josiah warranted it’d be enough to take care of the Colonel’s problem.

As if summoned, Anderson stalked out of the tent, limping badly on that damaged, ruined knee. He nodded to Corcoran and the rest. “One battle don't win the war, boys. Chain them up, Sergeant Darcy.”

A man who was missing one eye gestured for the others to come forward. Each held chains in his hands, and Josiah’s eyes went directly to Nathan, who sat frighteningly still.

“Make them nice and tight, boys,” Darcy commanded. They started with Chris, though what threat a dying man was supposed to be, Josiah couldn’t fathom.

“I was there at Shiloh, Captain,” Anderson said quietly to his second in command, observing his men as they trussed the five of them up.

“I know you were at Shiloh, Colonel.” Corcoran sounded unsure, suddenly. Tired.

Nathan jerked away as a soldier came toward him, and Josiah could see the urge to run in the young man’s eyes. The terror of ever being chained again.

“Nathan!” he called, sharp and commanding, but quiet enough that Anderson saw fit to continue his monologue. “Don’t,” Josiah begged his friend, watching Nathan fight for calm as he held his gaze. Watching him resign himself to the current circumstances as he had had to do for so much of his life. The thought saddened Josiah beyond reason, but there was no help for it now. He looked significantly at Imala, who still bled and Chris, who still breathed. “We’ll need you.”

“The union lines had broken,” Anderson was saying. “They were in full retreat. There was no way they could counterattack, but they did.” He spat his anger out, spittle glancing off of Buck’s face. The empath glared, but he seemed… calm. Ready. Ready for what, Josiah had no idea, but he would have thought Buck would be more disturbed by Chris’s condition. Gave him pause...

“Our surviving officers were herded up like cattle forced to watch as they raised their union flag. Then they fired off the cannons and we were all left for dead.” He rubbed that obscene joint in his leg. Lord, had it been like that since Shiloh!? “And I lay there amongst that carnage surrounded by the bodies of my dead brothers...”

Dear God, Josiah thought sadly. Enough to drive any man insane.

Anderson pulled himself together, smiling bitterly. “Well, we're going to raise the stars and bars over that little village.” His eyes met Nathan’s with a hatred that burned too hot to stand. “I want it to be the last thing these boys ever see.”

Josiah looked over at the cannon. The cannoneer and his men yawing it around so that it faced the five of them. The five who remained.

“All right!” Darcy commanded, clearly relishing the duty. “Let's get some muscle behind it! Move it up there on that flat now!”

The cannon came to bear on them, and Josiah closed his eyes, praying to the God he’d tried so hard to make amends to. The image of whirlwinds, combining and separating and combining again, played out across his eyelids, and he opened them in surprise, his gaze landing on Chris. Something would happen. Soon…

********  
to be continued…


	7. Chapter 7

Chris could feel the blood loss tugging at him, but he stayed conscious with an effort and held still, keeping up the ruse. Buck would feel he was awake—and pissed—and Nathan would be ready when the time came if there was something here his body couldn’t fix on its own. So he bided his time, listening as Anderson told his story. God, Shilioh… 

He’d been there, too. Hell, he was one of the things that’d turned it around for the Union troops. He would have laughed if it wouldn’t have given the game away. This was his fault in more ways than one. Vin’s death was his fault. At least Imala had survived. 

“How do you like the wild west now, kid?” Buck asked jovially, as Chris heard Anderson’s stumping, unsteady gait retreat. A canvas flap opened and closed. 

“You think you got me pegged, don't you Buck?” JD growled. He probably looked pretty tough right now, but Chris was close enough to hear the frightened wheeze of his breath in his chest. “Rich kid, had it all?” His voice dropped. “Yeah, I lived in a big mansion,” he stated bitterly. “My mother was a chamber maid. Never knew my father. They made me a stable boy and I taught myself how to ride.” 

Chris thought of Buck’s childhood in the whorehouse and figured the kid wasn’t going to find the comfort and sympathy he was expecting. He wondered if Buck’d misjudged the kid because they were so damned alike, all told... 

“Mama died last year,” JD continued. “She'd saved a little money. Wanted me to go to college. It wasn't enough.” 

True to form, Buck waited a beat and his tone was flat and matter-of-fact. “Life's tough, huh? And then you die.” 

“Are you ordering all these prisoners to be executed, Sir?” Corcoran’s voice came from farther away, from inside the tent that Chris had heard Anderson enter before. 

“That is correct.” Anderson’s voice was strained, and there was the sound of buttons being unhooked. The clink and gurgle of a bottle being opened and drunk from followed. Chris flashed back for the briefest second to that ambush in Texas. Lying pinned by a pole in the dirt, the dead arrayed around him. _“I lay there amongst that carnage surrounded by the bodies of my dead brothers…”_

He and Anderson were too damned alike for comfort. _What would it really take to kill either of us?_ he wondered morbidly. The bleeding in his side had already slowed, the entrance and exit wounds healing themselves cell by cell. 

“But, Colonel, these men surrendered,” Corcoran persisted. He was sick of this. Chris thought it was about damn time somebody was. 

Anderson, of course, was a different story. “And we shall reward them with a quick and merciful death. They shall not be made to suffer, as I was.” 

“That's murder, Sir.” _You’re just figuring that out?_ Chris thought, wondering how long Anderson would let the man talk before he shot him. 

“Are you refusing my order, Corcoran?” Not long, obviously. The smell of powder filled Chris’s nose as the cannoneer packed his wadding. A cannonball might do it—would sure as hell kill everyone else... 

“Colonel, we've been riding together for a long, long time, you and I,” Corcoran said, sadness and guilt and desperation mixed in his tone. “Following your orders has saved my life more times than I can remember. But this, I…” 

The man was about to sign his own death warrant. 

“Yes?” Anderson prompted. 

“I can't do it, Sir.” 

“They can’t do this, can they?” JD asked. Chris fought the urge to laugh again as he focused back on the men around him. _His_ men. 

“Pretty sure the cannon’ll do the job just fine,” Josiah assured him. But he didn’t sound sure. He sounded like he’d be home in time for supper. 

“Would be nice if there was a way to stop it,” Buck said, very low and casually intense. “If not, that big metal ball’ll just take the whole bunch of us out.” Chris heard a chain rattle and knew his own lip twitched into a tiny smile. He schooled his features and listened. “Just as strong and powerful as these chains.” 

JD’s breathing hitched as understanding dawned. Chris hoped the kid was up to the task. He was young still, to have much control over his gift. “How do they work?” he asked in a tiny voice. That could be a problem, if he had to understand the workings to open them. 

“Hey there!” The call from one of the soldiers was followed by the thick, hollow sound of a rifle stock hitting flesh and a body falling forward. “Shut up.” JD grunted in pain and Chris heard him right himself with a jingle of metal. 

He held his breath and waited for Buck to mouth off. Get himself shot. Get someone else shot. 

He tried to radiate approval and confidence when silence reigned and the guard moved on. After a minute, he felt someone bump his uninjured side. 

“Would you mind getting off my bad leg, Buck?” Josiah asked politely, a smile in the words. Buck had obviously knocked the big man into Chris in understanding. Josiah’s tone was light. Ready. God, it was like the infiltration team they’d had back in the Civil War. All of them on the same page and ready to strike when the strike was available. 

Buck started whispering, tiny and focused, explaining a lock to a child. 

“Place the mutineer among the other prisoners,” Chris heard Anderson command, the canvas swishing grandly again as he exited the tent. Strange he hadn’t killed Corcoran already. “And then execute them all.” Ah. 

“All, sir?” One of the soldiers asked, dubious about killing one of his own, no doubt. 

“I think I made myself clear, Captain Darcy,” Anderson replied dangerously. 

Anderson’s traitor was dropped to the ground beside him, landing on his bleeding side and causing him to clamp his jaw in pain as the wound started bleeding more fiercely again. The sound of Corcoran’s chains being locked covered the sound of a different set of chains being opened down the line, along with JD’s sharp, excited intake of breath. 

A boot to his foot caused a stabbing pain to lance all the way up through the bullet wound in his side and he forced himself to remain perfectly limp. 

“I regret not being able talk to your leader here about that flying demon we shot out of the sky,” Anderson said, giving Chris another kick, harder this time. “Perhaps one of the rest of you would care to enlighten me?” 

Damn. He didn’t even sound surprised that there _was_ such a thing as a flying man. Chris had to wonder where Anderson was reengineered. 

“Demon wings are black, so I’m told,” Josiah rumbled pleasantly. “I believe what you saw was a bird.” 

“A big bird,” Buck put in cheekily. 

“With a gun,” Josiah added in the same tone. 

Anderson moved past Chris, and Josiah’s breath hitched for a long moment as Chris felt the big man’s leg twitch and heard the impact of boot on flesh. Anderson must have stepped on the preacher’s blood-stained pant leg, not realizing Nathan had already healed the injury beneath. 

“Well, your bird is dead now, ain’t he, boys?” He kicked Chris hard again, and Chris resisted the urge to retaliate. “Looks like maybe your leader’s already joined him. Won’t be long ‘til the rest of you do, as well.” 

His uneven gait headed for the smell of horses and Chris tried not to sigh in relief. He heard Anderson mount and draw his steed in front of the assembled prisoners. 

“When our flag reaches the top of the staff, execute the prisoners,” he commanded. 

“Yes, sir,” Darcy replied as Anderson’s horse and a few others headed for the trail head. By Chris’s calculation, that made about ten soldiers up here. The sudden thud of a far off body hitting dirt and the smell of burnt silver had him slitting his eyes open. 

“How about it, Johnny Reb?” Buck called, loud enough to cover the sound of chains clanking as JD opened another set of restraints. Chris didn’t know if JD could handle unarmed combat, but he trusted the others to protect the kid when the time came. “I bet you never thought your boss would go loco on you.” 

“I'll have you know Colonel Anderson was one of the finest soldiers in any man's army,” Corcoran replied, loyal to the end. “I owe my life to him.” 

“Ironic,” Ezra’s almost silent Southern drawl sounded in Chris’s ear as freezing cold hands chilled the manacles around his wrists. Damn, Vin hadn’t been kidding about Standish being cold when he was invisible! “As Anderson will undoubtedly be responsible for his death. Ah, ah, ah!” Chris opened his eyes further, not seeing Ezra, of course. He looked at Corcoran, whose own eyes were wide in terror and whose mouth was open but unmoving, as if someone had a hand over it. “I suggest you stay quiet as a mouse, Captain. Because if you interfere, I will kill you just as surely as your precious colonel would. Do we have an understanding?” 

The menace in Ezra’s disembodied voice was unmistakable, and Corcoran wisely closed his mouth and nodded a tiny bit. There was the smell of blood about the gambler, but he sounded unhurt. Chris didn’t know where Standish had gotten to, but if there was ever a time for him to show up (or not, as the case might be) this was it. 

His manacles slipped open, though Ezra’s frigid grasp arranged them to look closed. The leg irons followed more quickly. “Mr. Tanner assures me you are up to this, Mr. Larabee,” Ezra said, wedging something between Chris’s leg and Josiah’s. “Don’t prove him wrong.” 

Mention of Vin’s name lightened Chris’s heart, and he opened his senses cautiously, sighing his relief to smell that familiar buffalo and hawk scent, even far off and mixed with blood as it was. Another body fell somewhere beyond them—Vin, improving the odds, probably—and he steeled himself to move as he saw Buck straighten slightly and heard more sets of chains give way. 

“Ezra?” JD breathed quietly. “How—” 

“Stealth requires silence, Mr. Dunne,” Ezra muttered shortly, the cranky tone prompting Chris to smile. 

“HEY!” The toothless visage of the cannoneer was suddenly before his eyes, the man’s toe poking into his injured side. “He ain’t dead after all!” 

Chris grabbed the gun Ezra had placed beside him and had it cocked and pointed in the man’s face in less than a second. “No,” he affirmed. “But you will be if you don’t back off.” 

The five soldiers who had been loitering by the cannon aimed their pistols at the prisoners, only to find themselves staring down six unfettered, armed men. Ezra hadn’t made an appearance, and Chris wondered why. 

“Standish, where the hell are you?” he called, rising painfully and struggling to stay upright as the others went about disarming and chaining Anderson’s men. That side was bleeding worse than before, now... 

Ezra walked slowly and visibly out from behind a nearby rock, as if he’d just arrived. Damn gambler really had run out on them, it was plain in his eyes. But the pain in his eyes gave Chris pause. Standish looked like nothing so much as a guilty, terrified young deserter. It took a hell of a lot of courage to come back and face your punishment. So, unsteady as he was himself, Chris walked right up to him and obliged. 

“Don’t you _ever_ run out on me again,” he growled. He waited until Standish got the meaning of the sentence, until relief and self-doubt shone in those green eyes. Chris didn’t know why, but he wanted—he expected—the young man to stay. 

“I—” Ezra broke off, unsure what to say, and simply nodded his understanding. “Mr. Tanner is in need of medical help—” 

“Nathan!” Chris called, finding that the world was buzzing a little more than he wanted it to. He didn’t hear Jackson complying with his command over the buzzing in his ears, so he spun to see where the healer was—and found himself abruptly falling into Standish’s arms, his sight going gray around the edges. 

******* 

Buck looked up at Chris’s call, gesturing to Josiah to finish fastening the last set of chains. He was just in time to see Chris collapse into Ezra’s arms. The gambler was borne to the ground by the larger man’s body and stared in concern as Nathan approached. 

The healer knelt beside them and the Southerner’s concern mutated into a terror that had Buck running for his friend. If Chris died now, after everything they’d gone through— 

“Ezra,” Nathan said quietly, looking Chris over. “Let me see him.” 

Ezra held Chris tight, denying access, and Buck gripped his shoulder, waiting until the young man—looking even younger in his fear—tracked up to actually see him. “Let Nathan take care of him.” 

“But—” Ezra began. 

“He’s gonna be okay, Ezra, I promise,” Nathan said, catching Buck’s eye and showing him the truth of the statement. “Just give me some room.” 

Ezra barely let himself be led away and Buck felt the strange combination of pain and anger and hate and loss that hovered between him and Nathan. He didn’t trust the healer and damned if Buck could understand the real reason why. 

Josiah appeared out of nowhere and addressed the gambler gently. “Ezra, where’s Vin?” 

Buck looked at him sharply, a grin blossoming. He hadn’t been able to hear what Ezra had said to Chris, but Josiah had, clearly. “Damn bird’s still flapping, huh?” Thank God. 

“Sadly, not right now. His injury is rather… revealing?” Ezra replied, shuddering and forcing his gaze away from where Nathan was tending to Chris. Buck could still feel his fear, as if he was afraid Chris would die if he didn’t keep an eye on what Nathan was doing. “We thought it best he take care of the outlying guards and remain hidden.” 

“Which don’t tell me where he is, Ezra,” Buck said with a chuckle, trying to shake the younger man from his thoughts. It didn’t work and he sighed. “What’s say you and Josiah go find his nest, yeah?” He gave Josiah a pointed look and saw the two men off before returning to Nathan and Chris. “He really gonna be okay?” he asked Nathan nervously. 

Pain and a foul mood radiated out at him and he smiled as Chris spoke for himself. “I’m as okay as I’m going to be.” Chris used Nathan as a ladder to pull himself to his feet. The wound at his side was bandaged now and the bandage was stained with a little blood, so clearly Jackson hadn’t healed him totally. “Nathan keeps forgetting he’s got at least two more wounded to deal with.” The healer was looking tired, but there was a wry smile on his face. “Best see to Imala,” Chris told him. “Figure we’re gonna need him.” 

Nathan rose and headed over to where the Indian brave and JD were guarding the prisoners. “Vin okay?” Chris asked, intense and worried. 

“Ezra’s gone off to bring him in,” Buck replied, lips tightening grimly at the distrust and disappointment from Chris. Buck hadn’t wanted to believe the gambler had run out on them, but he couldn’t say he was too surprised. At least he’d come back. “Sounds like Vin might’ve been winged. Kind of literally.” 

Chris just nodded and gazed across the way at JD, where the kid stood guard alone over the prisoners, Nathan having taken Imala aside to do his thing on that leg wound. “Kid did all right,” Chris said quietly. 

Buck smiled, feeling something stupidly like pride well up in him. “Figure if he survives the rest of the day, he’s got a chance of turning out okay,” he allowed. 

A wave of affection hit him as Chris clapped him in the shoulder. “I seem to remember thinking the same thing about you.” 

“You weren’t wrong though, were you?” Buck replied. He waited a minute, looking back at Chris to see him smirking, hiding his feelings away with a skill only he seemed to have. “Were you?” he demanded, pretending affront. 

Chris walked off toward Imala and Nathan. “Keep an eye out for Josiah and that gambler,” he said, laughter in his voice. 

“Damn old man,” Buck grumbled good-naturedly. His gaze roamed around the area, taking in the prisoners and the cannon. If only they had someone who could fire the damn thing… 

****** 

Josiah walked slowly, matching his pace to that of the troubled young man beside him. He hadn’t been the least surprised that Ezra came back to them. It wasn’t even the strings that bound the seven of them together, it was the goodness the boy seemed unwilling to embrace. 

“If you are going to stare, Josiah,” Ezra snapped mildly, “you may as well ask your questions.” 

Josiah grinned. “Not much to ask,” he said calmly. “Ain’t going to ask if you can turn yourself invisible, because I think that’s pretty much answered, now isn’t it?” 

Ezra snorted, his eyes squinting in pain. If he were anyone else, Josiah would tell him to see Nathan. Might be worth it to ask anyway, though. 

“Reckon there’s no point in me suggesting you see Nathan about whatever’s ailing you,” he stated. 

“None,” Ezra replied tersely. 

“You don’t like him much, do you?” When in doubt, make them mad. 

Didn’t work, or if it did, Standish was good at hiding it. “I find it interesting that all of you are so very quick to assume my distrust of Mr. Jackson is simply because he’s a negro.” 

“I don’t assume it has anything to do with that at all,” Josiah shot back candidly. 

Ezra looked at him a long moment. “And you would be right.” 

“Mostly.” Josiah smiled to take the sting out of his word. 

“Mr. Sanchez, I have quite a headache brewing just now,” Ezra drawled, exhaustion in his voice. “Perhaps we can continue this discussion at a later time?” He picked up his pace and led Josiah around a bend in the trail, toward the mouth of a small cave. “Or never.” 

Josiah shook his head and smiled. “Many lively conversations indeed,” he murmured, following along. 

************* 

Nathan sat and watched Imala walking gingerly on his healed leg. The Indian had been sure he’d be killed, and his people with him, and he was anxious to get back to the village to help. Truth was, Nathan was, too. Anderson would be wanting to raise that flag of his any time now, and when he did, he’d slaughter the whole village. Tastanagi, Osceola and his mama, Rain… 

“Nathan, can you come over here?” 

He looked up to see Josiah standing by a pile of boulders. “What do you need?’ he asked. “Thought you were heading out to get Vin?” Chris had told him Vin was alive, and Buck had said Josiah and Ezra were going to bring him in. 

“And we did,” Josiah said simply. 

Damn old man. Nathan hauled himself to his feet and headed for his friend, wondering why they didn’t just bring Vin into camp and let him fix whatever was ailing him…. 

“Hey, Doc,” Vin greeted him quietly as he rounded the boulders. Nathan stood still a moment and took it in, understanding why they hadn’t wanted to show him off to Anderson’s men—he looked like a sparrow trailing a broken wing. Vin’s right side had been hit, but the shirt tied awkwardly around it looked good and there didn’t seem to be too much recent bleeding. His left wing, though, didn’t close, and at least one of the bones was out of joint. Blood soaked the downy white and tan feathers that made up the top part of the inside of it, right at the biggest joint, and there was a hole in the fletch of it, where he’d managed to tie a shirt—now red with blood and filthy—around the meat of his wing. 

Nathan honestly didn’t have a clue what to do about this. 

“Has it been bleeding this whole time?” he asked, walking around Vin to get a better look. “How’d you manage to tie this?” 

“Turns out he’s good at dressing a wound, too,” Vin said, gesturing to Ezra. The Southerner looked like a rabbit with a gun in its face. Nathan didn’t blame him, given the amount of blood. 

Nathan walked around Tanner again. “Vin… I don’t know what to do here.” 

“Fix it,” Vin replied simply. 

Nathan had Ezra right in his line of sight, or he’d never have seen the flinch the man gave. He discounted it—too much to think about already. “It don’t work like that, Vin,” he told him. 

“I figured you just sort of… _felt_ what needed fixing and did it,” Vin persisted. 

“If you want to cripple a man for life,” Nathan said disdainfully. “Or kill him.” He stood behind Vin. “Open your other wing.” He traced his hand carefully over the sound wing, looking for the joints and the muscles. “This kind of healing ain’t like those damn faith healers and miracle doctors,” he groused. “I’m amazed more of them aren’t strung up for murder the way they just ‘lay on hands’ and hope it works right.” 

“Here we go again,” Josiah said, laughter in his tone. He’d heard this before, but God damn it, those fools were dangerous! 

“You can roll your eyes all you want old man,” Nathan shot back. “But I was damn lucky I had a master who taught us to read. Let me get a book every now and then. If I don’t know what’s supposed to be where, I can’t put it back the way it needs to be.” 

Nathan looked up from his examination to see Ezra watching with rapt attention and Vin thinking hard. Damn. “Can one of you get me my kit and a pot of boiling water? I can mend this the normal way, but… You ain’t gonna be moving the wing much for a while.” 

Vin spat. “Lord, I can’t exactly help take down Anderson with my wing hanging out, now can I?” he growled. “Come on, it can’t be that hard to fix. Think of it like a wrist bone.” 

Nathan considered the joint that was swollen and bleeding, then walked to the other side and pushed around the wounded one. It _was_ like a wrist bone. 

“What’s out of place?” he asked. “Can you tell which… finger?” 

“Only got two,” Vin said, hissing as Nathan pushed carefully on the damaged wing. “It’s like a pointer finger. Second knuckle from the palm, I guess.” 

Nathan nodded. He took hold of the bones on either side of the out-of-place joint and pulled them apart, snapping the joint back to normal. Ezra was heading back with a pot of water and nearly dropped the whole thing at the squawk Vin gave out. 

But just like Ezra had when Nathan had fixed his shoulder, Vin smiled at the instant relief. “See?” he said with a smile. “Just put your hand on it and fix it.” 

Nathan shook his head, gesturing to Ezra to put the pot on the rock beside Vin. “Next part ain’t gonna be so easy,” he warned. “I gotta go slow here. And I need you tell me the second something don’t feel right, okay?” 

He focused on the wing and on Vin’s responses to his questions, and he never noticed Ezra walking thoughtfully away. 

********* 

Ezra moved his shoulder, concentrating on the ache and the pain of it and trying to reconcile Nathan’s actions with what he knew of his kind. 

He wasn’t quite five years old when his father died, but even then, he’d had a head for details. His daddy had been sick, feverish, his words mad and jumbled, for nearly a week before his grandmother had taken him to see the healer. A student of voudon, the enormous black man had scared Ezra with his loud chants and massive hands, but his grandmother had been certain he could save Daddy. 

And indeed, Michael Standish had recovered almost immediately, his fever gone, his faculties returned. For a single, precious week, before he died suddenly in the night. 

_“I’m amazed more of them aren’t strung up for murder the way they just ‘lay on hands’ and hope it works right.”_

Nathan’s words echoed in his mind. So true. God knew, if Ezra had been older, that charlatan wouldn’t have seen another day. Mutami, as he called himself, healed all who walked in his door. Surely not all of them fell dead, but just as surely, he had more luck than skill on his side. 

Not like Nathan... 

Lord, his head hurt, and this line of thought wasn’t helping. He’d been hiding too long today, and he doubted he could avoid wrapping himself for the rest of the fight. He’d pay for coming back, when this was all over, but one look at Vin, alive and hopefully healing, and he knew it had been worth it. 

“Standish!” 

Larabee’s call had him shaking away his thoughts. The blond man stood—conscious and hale—next to the cannon, which had been moved back to its former position, pointed at the valley below, and Ezra reluctantly joined him and looked over the edge. 

Anderson must have ambled his way down the trail, as Ezra could see him and his entourage just arriving before the bound and frightened villagers. A soldier was digging a hole to erect the promised flagpole and Ezra figured they had perhaps a half hour before the carnage began. 

“You seem much improved, Mr. Larabee,” he murmured tentatively. 

The grunt he received told him little about his current standing in this little band, but he’d yet to be shot, so that was something. “Good enough to finish this,” Larabee allowed. 

Ezra watched Anderson walk his horse back and forth before the villagers, never once dismounting, so that he stood above them all. Tastanagi seemed to be glaring at him, but did nothing to provoke any action. 

“I fear there’ll be no easy finish to this,” he said candidly. 

“Probably not,” Chris agreed. “You remember how to fire one of these things?” 

Ezra looked at the cannon, then back at Chris. “And what, exactly, makes you believe I have any experience with artillery, Mr. Larabee?” Lord, could the man read minds, too? 

“The sparks a cannon’s fuse let off,” Chris explained, causing Ezra to look down at his nearly smooth hands, at the tiny but visible scars that no one ever thought to look for. “Cannoneers get these little pinprick scars on their hands and arms. Shot dot, we used to call them.” 

The cannon was old, but they had ample proof that it worked. “Aiming will be tricky,” he said, not denying his expertise. “I won’t have time—and the villagers don’t have the distance—for me to fire a calculating shot.” 

“I have an idea about that.” Chris looked beyond him to JD, who was sitting staring at the prisoners, his gun cocked and ready in his hand. “JD!” Chris called, gesturing for Buck to take over guard duty as Dunne hustled toward them. 

Ezra had been surprised to find the young man’s manacles and leg irons already unlocked when he got there. But what good was a lockpicker in firing a cannon? 

“Could you move a cannonball?” Chris asked him as he skidded to a stop before them. 

JD grinned, and Ezra had the distinct impression that he’d missed something. 

“Sure can,” JD replied confidently. 

Chris smiled grimly. “Then I think we’re about ready to take this fight to Anderson.” 

*******  
to be continued...


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa... 
> 
> It's been a number of very stressful days. This part is short, but I promise, the rest is coming.

Chris and Imala went in on foot to avoid making too much noise while still being sure they were there to cover the villagers before the shooting started. Chris was hampered by the wound in his side, but he was still surprised he didn't have to slow down as much as usual for Imala to keep up. They made better time than Anderson had in getting from the camp to the village, and the flagpole was just being raised into position as they slid into the bushes well back from Anderson and his men.

“Will the Soaring Soul be well enough to fly, if he must?” Imala asked him, his voice a bare whisper.

Chris kept his eyes on Anderson, as the colonel waited patiently. “Nathan doesn’t want him flying right away unless there’s no choice,” he replied, the relief of Vin’s survival still bright and warm. Nathan had tried to repair the damage to his wing, but Jackson had been flagging at the end, worn down by healing so many injuries. While the skin and blood were healed, the joint was still swollen and tender, though Vin thought he could at least fold his wings away if he needed to.

“What is a Soaring Soul?” Chris asked, hearing four of his men walk their horses quietly down the trail he and Imala had sprinted down moments ago. Vin and Ezra were waiting for the signal on the mesa above. “Your father called him that.”

“They protect the gods of the sky,” Imala answered, his eyes on his wife and son. “They are chosen by the wind to float upon it.”

“Angels,” Chris snorted, wondering what Vin thought of that. He remembered the look on the hunter's face when Tastanagi praised him. "You might get a fight on that one."

“Well…” Anderson’s voice, raised in mocking triumph, pulled Chris’s attention away. “I hear the clank of gold bars and the roar of the guns as we hit back at the Yankees.” He rode right up to Tastanagi and leaned over toward him, as if discussing the weather. “Here's what we're going to do now. We're going to have us a little flag-raising ceremony. Then we're going to execute us some prisoners with our little cannon.” He straightened. “And then you're going to show me where that mine is.”

“There is no gold in that mine,” Tastanagi responded, but not as if he thought Anderson would hear him.

He didn’t. “Oh, no, of course not.” He pointed his sword at the chief. “You're going to show me, old man.”

Chris heard Buck and the others arrange themselves around the soldiers, hiding where they could. Finally Josiah raised a single fist carefully, just in Chris’s line of sight, to let him know they were ready.

“Raise the colors,” called one of the soldiers.

“It’s time,” Chris murmured, hoping JD and Ezra were both as good as he hoped they were.

*********

Vin looked down at the village, wishing he was there in the thick of it, instead of here. He’d managed to fold his wings away, the left one still aching dully under his shirt and jacket. Looked like a damn hunchback, but at least he could back up Ezra without the prisoners gawking at him too much. He’d have to move on as soon as they were done with this. Too many people knew about him now, and it’d be easy to go to the only two white man towns in the area and hunt him down.

He couldn’t go back there, be chained there... He’d die first.

“Flagpole’s ready,” he muttered, more to calm his nerves, since he knew Ezra could see it as plain as he could. Well, almost.

“I fear Colonel Anderson isn’t going to have quite the celebration he assumed,” Ezra responded, a thread of satisfaction in his tone. He did seem to hate Anderson—what the man stood for. Was strange, given how he felt about Nathan. There was also something strange about him. The heat around him was different, hotter than usual—not cold, like when he was invisible, but not like a usual fever, either... Vin didn’t know, but he hoped whatever it was wouldn’t be a problem.

“You're outnumbered two to one,” Corcoran called from his place next to the other prisoners. “Anderson's a mad dog. You'll all die.”

Vin smirked. “We know what to do with a mad dog,” he assured him.

“You don’t understand,” Corcoran persisted. “Colonel Anderson isn’t like other men.”

“Yeah, we know all about your colonel,” Vin said, turning from the cliff face and advancing on Corcoran. “Pretty sure we got enough firepower to bring him down anyway.”

“That’s what any number of Union regiments thought, too.” Corcoran was sweating, exhausted… Vin figured he was done in every way and ready for this to be over.

“Take me with you,” the former captain said, ignoring the looks of hatred his former compatriots were giving him. “I know him. I know his methods.”

Vin considered it. They could use an inside man, but Corcoran hardly qualified as that anymore.

“I believe the time has come, Mr. Tanner.” Ezra’s statement called him back to the edge, to see the flag already raised. Anderson turned to look up at them, and Vin got the idea the man might be just as keen-sighted as he himself was.

“Best light her up, there, Ezra,” Vin told him.

“And hope that Mr. Dunne is as talented as he thinks he is.”

“Or that you’re a better shot than you think you are,” Vin lobbed back.

The cannon fired with a crack of sound so loud Vin wondered that Ezra hadn’t gone deaf years ago. He jumped back at the spray of sparks the fuse gave off, but the cannoneer at his side barely seemed to notice.

“I’m an excellent shot,” Ezra averred, smiling as they watched the cannonball fly, its path mysteriously altering just a little, mid-flight, to ensure that the flagpole exploded into kindling. “But you of all people should know how fickle the wind can be.”

Vin’s sharp eyes took in every line of anger in Anderson’s face, but he was sure Ezra’d get the gist, too. “He don’t seem happy, does he?” he asked.

Ezra grinned big and saluted the pompous old colonel. “Indeed he doesn’t.” He ducked back out of the line of fire as Anderson’s men tried to get a bead on their position. Somebody could get off a lucky shot, even at this distance. “I believe it’s time we were on our way, don’t you?”

Vin looked at the prisoners, trussed and chained and safe to be left for the time being. Even if one of them made it free, the fight would hopefully be over before they got there. They looked done in and over the war. He hoped they wouldn't be a problem.

Then there was Corcoran, champing at the bit to kill a man he’d followed for more than a decade. “You cross me, I’ll kill you,” Vin told him, kneeling down to unlock the man’s chains.

“He was an honorable man once,” Corcoran said quietly, rubbing his wrists. “I want to be the one to end this for him, if it has to be done.”

Gunfire rose from the valley floor as Ezra rode up to them on a cavalry steed, two more ponied behind him. “I believe we all agree it has to be done, Captain,” he said. “No man’s war should last longer than his sanity.”

Corcoran nodded sadly and mounted, and they were off down the trail as fast as the horses could take them.

*******

Anderson had pulled back as soon as the cannon fired, getting above the fray so he could direct his men. As if this was just another military campaign, not the slaughter of a village full of innocents.

Tastanagi and his people dove for the scrub oak and fallen adobe walls—anywhere they could find shelter. Chris saw Josiah and Nathan coming forward from their positions to start cutting them all free. He nodded to Imala, who took off running, heading for the cache of bows and arrows and knives they both prayed Anderson and his men hadn’t found.

Buck and JD fired shot after shot, hitting with impressive accuracy. Anderson’s troops dwindled, but they got more bold as they did. Chris looked up at the trail from the bluff to see Vin, Ezra, and Corcoran galloping down.

“Tanner, what the hell!?” he yelled, glaring at the former captain as they all reined in the horses and dropped to the ground, finding cover.

“Yeah, I’m hoping I don’t regret it, too!” Vin replied, raising his rifle and shooting when he could. Corcoran did the same, though he was clearly working his way around to try to flank Anderson. The rubble that cannon had made of the village gave the army men just as many hiding places as it did the rest of them.

Ezra ducked behind a wall nearby, taking a long moment to fire carefully. Chris watched Anderson jerk hard in his saddle but stay his seat. Damn bastard even laughed.

Nathan was the next to hit him, in his bad leg. Anderson seemed to feel that one more, but he still shot true, nearly taking Jackson’s head off in response.

“Round ‘em up, boys!” Anderson shouted, looking at something behind a hillock that Chris couldn’t see. “We don’t need any more of them coming after us!”

The boulder Ezra was hiding behind gave off a cloud of dust as a couple of rifle shots hit it. The gambler cursed roundly and Chris swung his gaze that way to see Standish literally vanish before his eyes. The air around him seemed to just wrap him into itself, and he was gone.

*******

“Standish, where the hell are you!?”

Ezra heard Chris’s outraged holler clearly, but he’d had a better angle than Larabee had. Anderson had been signalling his men to round up the children and the old women who were shepherding them, trying to get them to safety.

Ever mindful that bullets didn’t need to see you to hit you, Ezra ran wide of the conflict, firing wildly at Anderson as he passed. Not that he thought it would stop the demon even if he did hit him again, but he had to take the shot when it was presented to him.

“Come on, now, you half-breeds!” one of the cavalrymen cried, firing at Ola’s toes and causing the poor girl to shriek in fear. “Y’all are going to come with us. We’ll see what the Colonel will let us do, eh?”

Ezra’s aim in the silver was never as good as his aim when he was visible, the contrast and washed out colors making the world more complicated than it needed to be. Add to that the headache that was his punishment for overextending himself and he was glad to take the man out in one shot.

Mamami stared at the body for a moment as it fell to the ground, before shoving the children ahead of her.

The two remaining soldiers looked around, seeing nothing, and trained their weapons on the retreating women and children, perhaps feeling that eliminating them might be the smarter choice. Ezra dispatched one just as the other fired. A child cried out in pain and Ezra spun to see Akando lying on the ground, his arm bleeding heavily.

He shot the man dead without looking, running for Akando even as he heard other soldiers approaching.

“MOVE!” he screamed to the women, knowing they couldn’t see him, but praying that they’d heed him anyway. His vision was wavering as his headache built, but there was little time to think of comfort, as he scooped up Akando and whispered in the child’s ear, “Close your eyes, young man.” His mother had said the view from inside the silver was dizzying for those not used to it, and he didn’t wish Akando to be more frightened than he already was.

He wrapped the boy in silver, racing toward the women and children, who had finally started moving with more purpose. A cave opening became obvious as they neared, small but defensible, and Ezra sighed with approval as Mamami and the other women ushered the children in. He slid in after them, letting the scales slough off of himself and Akando, and raising his pistol to cover the approach. Lord, his head hurt.

“Mr. Ezra,” Akando whispered, his voice full of an awe and a pride Ezra was entirely unfamiliar with. “ _You_ are the _tamka kasapi_ *.”

“Just a man, Akando,” he whispered, firing at and missing a man who ducked for cover and was biding his time now. The pain building in his skull was affecting his aim more than the silver had. “Please, keep the women safe, will you?”

“Thank you, Cold Wind,” Akando whispered. He hissed as one of the women drew him away, hopefully to treat his wound.

Ezra blinked hard, the headache causing his eyes to water. Of course it was the headache.

It wouldn’t be anything else.

*******

“Bastard won’t go down!” Josiah called, as another bullet buried itself in Anderson’s flank. Sanchez readied himself, murmuring the spell he knew far too well. No man could survive this, surely. At least, no man he knew ever had.

“You can’t kill me,” Anderson was shouting gleefully as Josiah felt the magic build around him. “I am a ghost of the Confederacy and I will not die!”

“The hell you won’t,” JD yelled from nearby, too high on the fight to see his own peril. Josiah raised his gun, ready to fire—

It happened far too fast to stop. JD broke cover and advanced, guns out. Anderson’s saber was out as well, and arching toward JD before anyone could move. Anyone but Buck.

As if he’d known Anderson was going to do it, Buck launched himself at the younger man, blocking Anderson’s attack. The sword caught him high on the left side of his chest, raking down about three inches before it simply stopped cold. Anderson looked at it in shock as Buck fell to the ground, clutching at the blood as it ran out of him.

“Don’t.” JD’s voice was as cold and furious as could be and he stood behind his fallen friend. Anderson’s blade flew out of the man’s grip, and murder came into his eyes. He drew his gun, but it too was flung away by JD’s anger. The handful of soldiers still standing found themselves suddenly unarmed as well, and Josiah let the magic flow back into the air. It seemed John Dunne had the situation well in hand.

“I will not be stopped by the likes of you, boy!” he yelled, turning his horse, as if to run the young man down.

A bullet struck him in the side, nearly unseating him, and he turned. Josiah watched Corcoran stand from his hiding place across the battlefield and walk forward. The few soldiers left seemed to hold their breath, too spooked by JD’s instinctive actions and Corcoran’s mutiny to risk retrieving their arms.

“This has to stop, sir,” the former captain said. JD had dropped to the ground to stare dumbly at Buck, who was conscious, if barely, and bleeding badly. Josiah looked to his left and saw Nathan itching to break cover and get to them.

“Francis?” Anderson whispered, a lifetime of pain in the sound. “You were like a son to me.”

“Don't make me do this, Sir,” Corcoran begged quietly. He raised his gun again, but it was shaking. He couldn’t fire and the colonel knew it.

Anderson stared at him a long moment. “My God,” he muttered, as if appalled to have known the younger man. “You're a coward.” He chuckled madly and opened his arms wide as Corcoran lowered his weapon in defeat. “Go ahead, Francis! Shoot!” His eyes burned with madness and hatred. “I. Cannot. Die.”

“I hope to God that isn’t true. For both of us.” Chris’s cold, almost sad pronouncement was followed by a shot that put a bullet in Anderson’s brain. And finally—finally—the colonel fell from his horse, landing in an unmoving heap beside Buck. Nathan jumped out from behind his protective wall and knelt beside Wilmington, but Josiah knew the black man didn’t have the strength to heal him.

“The war is over!” Chris shouted, glaring at the surviving soldiers. “Go back to your families.” He turned his back on all of them and headed for his friend. He didn’t look relieved that Anderson was dead, or that the battle appeared to be over. Instead, he simply looked furious that they had had to be here at all.

 _Perhaps we’ll have a talk later,_ Josiah thought to himself, watching Larabee seethe. _Every whirlwind needs strife in the air to feed it. At least at first._ He looked around, seeing Vin, his shirt and jacket bulky and awkward from the damaged wing that he’d got saving Imala’s life, and JD, eyes glazed with shock and guilt though he’d likely saved them all when he saved Buck…

_Out of many whirlwinds, one._

And once a whirlwind was in full swing, little could knock it down.

********

The two of them had been fighting side-by-side for eight months when the Union marched into Guitonen, Tennesee. Buck was taking his usual risks, being his usual brash self. Just his bad luck that the Confederate riflemen they were up against this time were sharper than usual. He’d taken a round in the chest and nearly bled out before the corpsman could get to him.

Chris thought dismally that he might be bleeding even more now.

He knelt beside Buck and took his hand, and Buck gripped it hard, struggling to breathe—though from blood loss or pain, it was hard to say. Nathan was shoving on the wound to slow the bleeding, but with a dark, defeated look in his eyes.

“Hey, pard,” Buck whispered. “We got him, huh?”

Chris smiled sadly, remembering the kid Buck had been back in Guitonen. So damn young. Hell, he was still so young, really. “Yeah,” Chris agreed, squeezing Buck’s hand in reassurance and hiding every bit of his own emotion. “We did it.”

Buck’s eyes closed, and Chris looked up at Nathan, hoping for a miracle from the healer. But Nathan wasn’t a miracle worker, he reminded himself, as he took in the black man’s gray features and sunken eyes. He was just a man. At the end of his tether.

“Saber nicked an artery when it went in,” Nathan murmured, looking guilty as hell. “I can’t… I don’t have the energy to knit the thing right now. It’s complicated. Takes a lot. I need to try to cut in and sew it up.” He ducked his head, damning himself for a death that hadn’t happened yet. “I never done a surgery like it. I’m not a doctor, Chris.”

“Don’t have to be. You’re a friend.” Josiah’s voice was suddenly there, and Chris looked up to see the preacher standing over them, his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Means more than all the doctors in the world.”

Chris nodded, and Nathan’s eyes focused more sharply. Vin had told Chris about how the healer had been able to figure out his wing, drawing on years of learning that had nothing to do with his natural healing abilities. “You’ll do it, Nathan,” he said quietly, squeezing Buck’s hand once more and rising.

The world had continued turning while Chris sat at his friend’s side. Vin and the men of the village were rounding up the rebels’ guns, Tastanagi and his people seeming to decide who would face Seminole justice and who would be allowed to wander off and try to find a life outside of Anderson’s war.

Corcoran sat on a rock, staring at Anderson’s body. The shock on his face was painful, and Chris took a seat next to him, drawn by it.

“When I met the Colonel, I was being held prisoner by the Union,” Corcoran said. “He and his men broke into the complex and killed or captured all of the forty Northerners guarding us. He took four rounds that day and lived to tell the tale.” He looked away from the corpse. “I truly did think he was immortal.”

“God finds a way around immortality,” Chris told him, more wishful thinking than truth. Still, if Anderson could be brought down, there was nothing to stop someone from doing the same to him someday, and there was a kind of comfort in that. “Go home, Captain,” he told the man.

Corcoran laughed bitterly. “I have no home, sir,” he replied, standing and dusting off his knees. “But I’ll take the colonel back to his.” He looked at the body. “He deserves to _rest_ in peace, at least.”

Chris nodded, rising and shaking the man’s hand. “Good luck,” he said.

Corcoran didn’t reply, just walked off to take care of his colonel one last time.

“He wasn’t you, Chris,” Vin said quietly, watching Corcoran kneel over the body. “Anderson?”

“Could’ve been, though,” he replied. “Maybe I was just lucky to be on the winning side.”

Chris had smelled and heard him coming, but he turned now to look at the younger man, just to content himself that he was there. Alive. His gaze went back to Buck, and to JD, sitting next to him and shoving a pile of cloth into his shoulder to slow down the bleeding.

“Buck?” JD was drowning in guilt, and Chris prayed the kid would survive if Buck didn’t.

But Buck had to. He couldn’t leave Chris now. Not like this.

“Hey, kid,” Buck murmured back, his voice low enough that JD was having to lean in to hear him. “Do me a favor?” When JD got close enough, Buck reached up with his uninjured arm and knocked the bowler off the kid’s head, his voice abruptly stronger. “Get yourself a real hat.”

Chris smiled, though it was tight and painful. He’d missed Buck the last few months, since Parkerstown. He’d miss him if...

Nathan came running back toward them, Rain and Josiah in tow and his medical kit under his arm. He leaned over to check Buck’s bandage, and Buck grinned, though Chris could hear his voice falter. “Never did get to spend any time with those fine ladies, Nathan.”

“You will,” Nathan assured him. Chris wasn’t even an empath and he could hear the doubt in his words. “But first let's get you stitched up.”

”Long as I can just lie here, I figure we can do whatever you like,” the wounded man replied. He looked up, capturing Nathan’s attention. “I trust you, Nathan,” he said quietly. “Don’t matter whether you got the magic touch or not.”

Nathan swallowed hard and nodded, pulling the blood-soaked cloth away and starting his work.

“Chris?” Vin said quietly, pulling him back. “Have you seen Ezra?”

He shook himself, a flush of anger running through him. “Last I saw him, he got spooked by a bullet and disappeared. Probably ran out again.” Though he wasn’t sure he really thought that.

“NATHAN!”

Nathan had a scalpel hanging over Buck’s shoulder and looked up, startled, as one of the boys came sprinting up. “It’s Mr. Ezra! You need to come!”

*********  
to be continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Tamka kasapi_ is a rough translation of "cold wind". With apologies to the Creek and Seminole languages.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lord, people, this has been a trek! Nearly done, now. The last bit will be up by tomorrow, God willing. Thanks so, SO much for hanging with me and reading this silly epic of mine. It has been awesome fun to write and I can't wait to see where the universe goes from here.
> 
> Hold on now, just a little bit longer...

Josiah could see the irritation in Nathan’s eyes. Not that Standish needed his help—the nature of his gift made it difficult to turn away anyone, no matter what the person thought of him—but that he needed his help _now_ , when there was no way to give it.

“What happened?” he asked the boy, patting Nathan on the back to urge him to continue. Josiah had patched up any number of wounds himself over the years, but Buck needed _Nathan’s_ skills and he was hoping any old man would do for Ezra. “Was he shot?”

“No—Akando was, but Mamami is taking care of him.” The boy’s eyes grew wide. “Mr. Ezra saved Akando’s life. He turned himself, and Akando too, into the Cold Wind and got him to safety. He protected us.”

“So what happened?” Josiah repeated, striving for patience.

“Mamami doesn’t know. When the gun flew from the soldier’s hand, Mr. Ezra went and tied him up, but when he turned back to us, he couldn’t see, couldn’t walk. He stumbled and fell, but we couldn’t find any blood...” He tugged on Josiah’s serape. “Please! You must help _Tamka Kasapi_.”

Nathan looked up at Josiah bleakly, his fingers in Buck’s neck, as if holding the blood in the vein. “If it’s his head…”

Josiah nodded. If it was his head, Nathan wouldn’t even try to heal him. Not that the healer had the energy to heal anyone right at the moment, but from the sound of it, checking on Ezra would only slow him down in saving Buck’s life.

“I’ll go,” Josiah promised. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, murmuring a plea for calm that the air around them answered with a surge of energy. The boy took a deep breath and stood a little taller, and Josiah smiled. Perhaps the magic was good for something, after all.

“Is anyone else hurt?” he asked as they walked.

The boy shook his head. “No. Mamami says Akando will recover.” He grinned, the resilience of youth letting his excitement rise. “They appeared out of nothing, Josiah! They shimmered like silver and then appeared!”

Josiah kept his face neutral, but thought about the gambler and all the stories he must have, given his talents. He hoped Ezra would live long enough to tell him a few. He couldn’t even hope to divine what happened until he saw him, but a blow to the head could cause more trouble than it seemed to...

They passed an older boy—Jirna, Josiah thought his name was—where he was using what looked like Ezra’s rifle to stand guard over a Confederate man who sat tied and bound and sick of war on the ground. The cave wasn’t far from there, and it was quiet, full to its very small brim with children and women, all crowded around a man lying in the farthest corner. Mamami saw Josiah and the boy coming and worked her old bones slowly to her feet to face them.

“We moved him into the darkness,” she told them solemnly. “The light seemed to cause him pain.”

Into the darkness… And Ezra had complained of a headache earlier in the day. Josiah wondered, thinking on what it was like to reach the end of your rope. Gifts—true gifts, like Nathan’s and Ezra’s, not those stolen from the universe like his own—exacted a price from the user himself, in blood or strength or sanity…

“I’ll take care of him, Mamami,” he said, gripping her arm in comfort. “Why don’t you see to Akando and the other children back at the village? Get one of the men to take your prisoner. The battle is over.”

She wanted to argue, he could see, but she sighed and ushered the others out, all but carrying Akando when he balked at leaving Cold Wind. Soon the two men were alone, one curled in the corner, the other looking down at him critically.

“Cold Wind,” Josiah rumbled as quietly as he could so as not to awaken the gambler. “Quite a name.”

“Inaccurate… at the very least,” Ezra surprised him by whispering, voice wan with pain. “The wind is fleet. I hardly have Mr. Lara…” Their meaning unclear, the words drifted off. Josiah could tell by the tight line of every muscle, though, that Ezra hadn’t.

“Head hurt?” Josiah ventured. He’d met a man in India once, who could lift all manners of things with his mind—not just sabers and guns, but people, and even elephants. He suffered from the most terrible headaches.

“Hurt is… far too tame a word, Mr. Sanchez,” Ezra eked out carefully, as if each syllable might crack his skull with its vibrations.

“Does this happen every time?” Josiah asked, keeping his voice low while settling himself against the wall beside the young man. Ezra hadn’t moved, his face still toward the rock.

“Only when I am foolish enough to overindulge.” He sighed a whimper. “I am usually able to find a… safe place… before…”

Josiah laid a comforting hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You have a safe place now, son,” he promised. He wondered if a sleeping spell would do harm. Divine illnesses were tricky—the rules were never very well defined.

“Anderson?” The question was little more than a breath.

“Dead,” he assured him.

“The rest?” Ezra’s voice was fading, and Josiah wondered whether he should have sent one of the children for something to ease the pain. He should do something… but the possible cost kept him from pleading with the air.

“We’ll all heal,” he replied, praying that in Buck’s case, that was true. “Nathan’ll see to that.”

Ezra turned to face him, groaning at the pain in his skull. His eyes opened, and Josiah fought not to react. They were black. Completely. As if… As if the orbs themselves were invisible and he was seeing into the skull behind them. Lord, would they turn back when he’d recovered?

“I will not have him laying hands on me.” Ezra’s words held the volume of desperation, and he sucked in a breath as the increased noise seemed to stab at him. His tone turned wheedling. “It will pass on its own.”

Josiah sighed. “He’d never try,” he told him, wondering again at Nathan’s self-imposed limit and Ezra’s adamant distrust. “He believes the mind should heal itself.”

“A singularly rare restraint... for one of his kind. Mutami… disagreed.” Ezra closed his eyes and visibly fought to relax.

“Who did Mutami heal?” Josiah could see a glimpse now of the reason behind Ezra’s reaction to Nathan, his quiet insistence that it wasn’t necessarily Jackson’s color he objected to. Josiah sighed. He would leave the air to its power, then. Whether a sleeping spell would hurt or harm on a physical level, it was clear that it could irreparably damage the boy’s psyche.

Ezra’s voice held a lifetime of sorrow and bitterness. “No one.” He sighed. “I believe I shall sleep now.” And thankfully he did, cast away on the waves of Morpheus in seconds.

Josiah studied the man as his face finally began to relax from the pain of being conscious. “It sounds as if you have more healing to do than the physical,” he murmured.

He chuckled at himself, realizing the number of times he’d called on the magic of the air in recent days. More than he had since the slaughter at Myersville, though his goal this time had been more aid than revenge... It was effortless as always, but the sense of horror, of sin upon sin mounting in his soul was faded now. As if he had a blessing he hadn’t before.

He mused on these men and what they had accomplished all together. God had brought him here, he thought, to die for his sins. But perhaps the Almighty had another plan in mind. A different way to atone. _Out of many, one._ Perhaps…

“Perhaps you’re not the only one.”

**********

The knife buried itself in the ground and dug itself back out again. In and out. In and out.

Nathan had sent JD away, telling him his worry would only distract Buck from the job of surviving. He’d done a great job of that already. He was the one Buck was saving, thanks to his own stupidity and it was going to be his fault if he died.

“You did good today, kid.”

The words were something Buck would have said, and the knife fell clattering to the ground as JD looked up to see Vin approach. He picked up the knife with his mind and began again. In and out. In and out.

“A good job of getting Buck killed,” he replied. Vin sat next to him, watching the knife. Judging, probably.

“Owning up to your mistakes isn’t always the easiest thing to do, but it’s one of the things people remember you for the most.”

Great. Another person giving him advice. “I can’t apologize if he’s dead,” he grated back.

“He ain’t dead yet,” Vin said quietly. “Figure even without his miracle healing, Nathan’s about the finest doctor around here.”

“He’s the only doctor around here.” The knife drove into the ground a final time, and JD started pushing on it harder, twisting it slowly, like a drill. Trying to bury it.

“See?” Vin replied, a smile in his voice that made JD want to use the knife for more than digging. “Things are looking up already.” He sobered and JD found himself almost listening. “You screwed up, but even if he dies, it isn’t gonna be your fault. Buck would’ve done it for any of us, I reckon.” He snorted as the knife kept going deeper. “Not sure what the hell the seven of us are, but I think we were meant to finish this together, you know?”

The statement, quiet and reflective and ringing with truth, stopped JD’s drive to dig to China. “You felt it, too?” he asked, looking up and getting caught in Vin’s clear blue gaze. “I figured I read too many dime store novels, you know? Destiny Entwined and all that.” He sighed, reaching down to retrieve the knife with his hand. “I was headed for Eagle’s Bend—Four Corners wasn’t even my stop. But one look at you guys and I knew my future was here. I just never figured on this.”

Vin chuckled. “If you could see the future… You’d be Josiah, probably.” He clapped JD on the shoulder and it didn’t even feel condescending when he did it. “I ain’t read any of your novels, JD, but I can tell you that you could have done a lot of things with those guns you tossed away.” He stood, gazing off across the village to where Chris and Tastanagi were talking. “The fact that you didn’t tells me all I need to know. Buck’d never blame you, kid—even if the worst does happen.”

JD nodded. No, Buck’d never blame him—

“Ain’t to say he’d ever let you live that down, though,” Vin broke into his thoughts. “That was some prime stupidity, running out in the open like that.”

The matter-of-fact statement, couched in an acceptance JD wasn’t expecting, made him laugh, a lightness coming upon him for a second. Like maybe things would be okay, after all. He laid the knife flat on his palm, like Buck had done with that tin can just this morning, and concentrated on making it rise smooth and easy.

Vin chuckled his appreciation of the trick and walked off toward Chris, and JD’s eyes roamed back to the tent where Nathan had had Buck moved, so he could work on him better. Nathan hadn’t been real encouraging, and JD just knew that, if Buck died, things would never be okay again.

Damn Buck for being so overprotective anyway! It wasn’t like JD was a child. _You sure as hell acted like one, though, didn’t you?_ he asked himself, his mood turning painfully dark in a instant. The boys at the manor had spent his whole life telling him what a brat he was—how he was just plain stupid.

The knife bent in half, snapping in midair in response to his anger, and JD stood up, leaving the pieces where they fell as he stalked off into the woods.

Maybe he was just proving them right.

*******

There was something comforting about the way Vin always knew Chris knew he was coming. It was like someone waiting up for you to get home. Someone noticing when you were gone.

He’d miss that.

“You fought with us, not against us,” Tastanagi was saying, his face clear and untroubled for the first time since Vin had met him. “Me-toh.*”

Chris nodded and clasped wrists with the old man, and Tastanagi reached out to offer Vin a thank you as well. “You have flown to protect our people, Soaring Soul,” he said gravely. “Do not underestimate your worth to the wind.”

Vin knew he was blushing, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He was no angel, that was for damn sure. He’d only been trying to use the gift the Universe gave him, just like Mammedaty had taught him.

Chris stepped in and saved him. “I’m not sure how many of us will be up for it, but we can give you a few more days’ work,” he offered. “Help you rebuild.”

“It seems a great deal of effort for five dollars a man,” Tastanagi said, a wry smile on his face.

“Well it ain’t been a week yet, has it?” Vin replied flippantly.

Chris handed the medallion back to Tastanagi, who took it with a raised eyebrow. Chris just shrugged. “Never could figure out how to split it seven ways.”

The Seminole chief chuckled and stepped away, heading back to the people they’d all worked so damn hard to save.

Vin took a deep breath, trying to figure out how to let Chris know what had to be done. He’d stay and help with the village, but…

“Where you headed?” Chris asked suddenly.

Vin smirked. “I thought Buck was the mindreader,” he spat out, immediately wishing he’d kept his damn mouth shut when Chris’s jaw tightened. “I’m sorry. I—”

“He’ll make it,” Chris replied quickly, as if he had to force the lie out as fast as possible lest good sense get the best of him. “I ain’t talking about him anyway.” He gave Vin a penetrating look and repeated his question. “Where are you headed?”

Vin shrugged. “Hell, I don’t know. Somewhere. Somewhere far enough away that no one’ll come looking for the winged man who fought here.” It felt so damn wrong. Vin had always believed in destiny—his mama had taught him to long before the People proved her right. Destiny was as real as air.

But it wasn’t always as easy as breathing.

Chris nodded. “Figure you’ll find a place with some decent whiskey?” He grinned. “Hell, even bad whiskey.”

Vin stilled in surprise. Chris was offering to go with him? That was… He fought to find his voice. “I imagine so.”

Chris repeated Buck’s statement from what seemed like a lifetime ago, though the echo was sad and longing. “Then imagine I’m in.”

There was a warmth in Vin suddenly, as if that destiny of his was somehow inside this man who, without him asking, had suddenly agreed to travel with him. To allow him a person who knew what he was and asked for him to be nothing more. He couldn’t keep from grinning.

“You know Ezra’s gonna shoot you for giving away his gold,” he kidded, as Chris headed toward Nathan’s tent and he fell in beside him. Easy as breathing.

“Might not be something I gotta worry about,” Chris murmured. “Ain’t seen Josiah since he went after him, and the children didn’t sound too encouraging.”

“Sounded like he earned his keep, though,” Vin replied. The story of Cold Wind saving Akando was already building to epic proportions, bigger each time another child told it. “Maybe he’s more trustworthy than you thought.”

“Maybe.” Chris snorted. “I’m allowed to be wrong every couple of years,” he said easily.

Vin smirked. “Well now, that’s a hell of a lot of mistakes, ain’t it, old timer?”

Chris sobered as they reached the tent to see Mamami sitting outside, checking the bandage on Akando’s arm.

“You have no idea.”

**********

> It was more than two years before Ezra’s mother discovered his trick, which would have been impressive if he’d seen her more during that time. But she’d had some wonderful opportunities in Chicago and San Francisco and hadn’t seen him more than a handful of months.
> 
> He was staying with a relative—possibly (the actual familial connection seemed thin at best)—in Alabama when she came back unexpectedly from a failed venture. He’d been playing hide and seek with his “cousins,” confounding them as always with his complete ability to evade them. He’d rounded a tree, looking behind him at the three of them—each twice his size—growling their frustration. He’d shaken off the scales without looking around him, and run smack dab into his mother’s skirts.
> 
> Perhaps a different mother would, at the very least, be surprised by her child's abilities, or worried for his safety. But this was Maude, so needless to say, she saw a tool she could use and immediately started exploiting it.
> 
> Ezra had already been practicing daily, because the silver was more fun than his boring playmates, but Maude had him hone the ability, in the same way she had him practice at cards. They had a set schedule that took most of their time and gave him a startling amount of control over the silver he’d only sloppily been using before then. But nearly a month later, they realized that too much practice could be a dangerous thing.
> 
> The day had been clear and bright, but Ezra had spent hours in the sitting area of his mother’s room, practicing wrapping only parts of his body. He loved the look of the world when he was invisible to it, and at eight years old, silly things like making his head disappear were hilariously funny to him, if highly disconcerting for his mother.
> 
> “Ezra, darling, please,” she said, shuddering delicately. “Let’s try again with your right hand. I’ll ask you to leave your head exactly where it is.”
> 
> He remembered giggling at that, enjoying the time spent one-on-one with Maude. When they were united in a common goal, he and his mother had always been a formidable team, one he adored being a part of. His head had been hurting for most of the practice, the pain mounting as they went on, but he hadn’t said a word, knowing that she’d find another place to be while he recuperated if he admitted to the infirmity.
> 
> He willed the scales to slide off of his head—his mother had objected early to the way he shook them off like he was “some sort of hairy dog in a pond,” so he’d been practicing a smoother appearance as well—and didn’t immediately notice that the world remained warm and brown. He was far too busy trying to keep from throwing up from the sudden and terrifying pain in his skull.
> 
> “That is even more disturbing, Ezra,” his mother had tutted at him, oblivious to his plight. “Uncover your eyes immediately and let’s move on, please.”
> 
> He vaguely remembered her delicate yip of surprise as she tried to catch him when he slid from his chair, but once his head connected with the floor, the next 24 hours were a complete blank.

“I doubt moving him would help, JD.” Josiah. Trying to be quiet, and the rumbling deep voice was almost soothing as his head throbbed on and on and on. “Might even make things worse.”

Yes. It would definitely do that. Wherever he was, it was cool and dark and he would stay here as long as his mind insisted on turning itself inside out.

“But shouldn’t he… I don’t know.” JD’s voice was concerned and there was something wrong, clearly, but the high, stressed tenor of it was like nails in his brain. “I guess there’s nothing to do.”

“Nathan won’t heal something like this,” Josiah replied. A heavy, warm hand dropped unexpectedly on to Ezra’s shoulder, and he wondered if the preacher knew he was awake, or was simply offering comfort absently. Whichever it was, the kindness was more than Ezra had come to expect during his recuperations. They were mostly done by holing up somewhere he’d likely not be found—he rarely had a companion along, at any rate.

“Why not?” JD asked. Lord, though! Couldn’t they take their discussion somewhere else? He couldn’t coordinate well enough to engage them just yet, but… Maybe he wouldn’t have asked them to leave even if he could.

“His business is his own, JD,” Josiah said. So clearly, he didn’t understand Nathan any better than JD did, but was unwilling to admit it. “I expect it has something to do with the nature of the human mind.”

Or of a healer who, shockingly, seemed to want to actually _heal_. Ezra tried to keep his thoughts connecting to each other, to puzzle out the possibility that Nathan Jackson might be exactly who he professed to be: a man who only wanted to help.

“Well, he can’t just stay here, curled up on the floor of a cave!” He could, by God. The cave was dark and cool and perfect. Ezra remembered dimly what had happened. He hoped Akando was all right.

“He’ll be fine for now,” Josiah said quietly. “You should get back. Check on Buck and let Chris know I’ll be along with Ezra when he’s ready.”

Buck? That sounded disturbing.

“What if…?” JD sounded like a lost child, and Ezra again tried to collect his thoughts to figure out what was going on. As always, thinking through the headache was like moving through molasses.

“Go see, John Dunne,” Josiah told him, the command gentle, but a command nonetheless. His hand squeezed where it touched Ezra’s shoulder. “You’ll be better for knowing, and I believe our gambler will be better for the silence.” _So he does know I’m awake._

“Do you need anything?” JD asked, his voice too damn bright—what Erza needed was for them both to stop talking and for sleep to claim him again.

“No,” Josiah told him. “I expect, if he’s not awake by nightfall, I’ll be wanting something to eat, but we can get there when we get there.”

There was silence, and when JD spoke again, it was with a compassion and concern Ezra’s addled brain refused to process. “I hope he’s okay.”

“He will be.” Josiah was suddenly a priest for a moment, comforting and offering hope to an uncertain lamb. “They both will, JD. You’ll see.”

There was scuffling in dirt that was as loud as gunshots, and suddenly the world was blessedly silent again. The hand on his arm squeezed again, but he was already sliding sideways, back into the painless gray.

“Buck?” he whispered, not up for more words as just the one echoed in his head with excruciating intensity.

Josiah sighed. “Nathan is doing all he can,” he said, answering nothing.

And yet, as the gray took him back, Ezra found himself perversely comforted by the idea that Nathan was caring for Buck, whatever his injury. A strange thought to have about a healer…

********

Chris sat next to Buck, staring. There was a bandage over the wound, of course, but the splint-like rig Nathan had put him in—a plank strapped to him to hold his neck and arm immobile, making sure he didn’t move and tear the stitches that were keeping him from bleeding out—made him look like he’d simply fallen. Broken something.

One look at the pale, sweating face, and you’d know he was broken, all right.

“I done what I can for now,” Nathan told him, sitting on the other side of Buck’s cot because he clearly didn’t have the energy to stand. He was minutes from collapse, and if he was anything like Peg when she’d overdone it, he’d sleep for a day or more once he let himself stop moving.

“He’ll probably run a fever, so watch for that,” the healer told Rain, who was hovering closer than a nurse normally would. “Once I’m up…”

“You gotta go down to get up, Nathan,” Chris reminded him sternly. “We’ll look after him.”

Nathan nodded, sliding onto the bedroll beside him, mostly gone already. “Anything from Josiah?” he asked, stubborn to the end.

“We will look after them, too,” Rain told him, kneeling beside him and stroking his brow a moment as he fell hard into a sleep that was more unconsciousness. She bent her head, eyes shut in a pain almost physical.

“I’m sorry for your father,” Chris whispered, unsure if the sentiment would be welcomed.

Rain just nodded sadly, tears running silently down her face. “He and my mother are together now,” she said calmly. “In the clouds.” She looked at Buck and smiled. “Thanks to Nathan, your friend will not be joining them soon.”

And with that, she left him alone with a snoring healer and a too-still friend.

“Better not make a liar out of her, big dog, you hear me?”

The tent flap moved again and Chris looked up to see Imala standing there. The young man was troubled, his gaze traveling over Nathan’s sleeping form to land on Buck and stay there.

Chris figured he needed a minute, so he gave it to him. Finally, the young brave spoke, his voice low and hurting. “You fought for us. White men—men who have done so much to us.”

“Buck never did anything to you or your people, Imala.” Chris’s mistakes—vast and long-lived—were nothing he could defend, so they didn’t enter into it.

Seemed like Imala didn’t have much ability to defend himself either. “He will live?” he asked quietly.

Chris looked Buck over, hearing the whistle of effort in his breath, seeing the pale grayness to his skin, smelling that all-pervasive stink of blood where it had no business being. “He’ll live,” he replied. He wasn’t quite lying to either of them. Not yet. “The White Man isn’t every white man, any more than one Indian is all Indians.” He gestured to the world outside the tent. “Your son’ll learn from you, Imala,” he said, wisdom gained from too God damned many years of war giving him the right to preach. “Might be a damn sight less painful for him to learn it early.”

Imala nodded and silence reigned between them for a time. “Where is the Winged Man?”

“Sleeping,” Chris replied shortly. In point of fact, it had been killing Chris to watch Vin hold his damaged wing captive like that. He’d told him one too many times to go find a way to stretch his wings, and Vin had stomped away like a child, telling him he was heading up to the top of the bluff to “get away from your damn mothering and get some sleep.”

An image of Vin, lying up there snoring with his wings spread out around him, had given Chris an instant headache.

“What happened to 'Soaring Soul'?” he asked wryly.

Imala ducked his head. “A man earns the right to his name. Vin does not wish to acknowledge his connection to the wind.”

And then he left. Chris snorted and shook his head at the abruptness of his departure. Wind, whirlwinds, twisted up lives…

For the first time in a damn long time, this had felt good, the warmth of it staying with him even now, with Buck as he was and Standish in God knew what condition. The seven of them _worked_ together. In a way he hadn’t found since the Rebs had burned down Erskine’s facility. The strike team Soldier X had commanded during the war had been a fine group of men, but there was something to be said for being with people who knew what it was like to see the world in a way no one else could. Even when each of them had a different view.

He reached out and patted Buck’s arm. “You keep breathing, Buck,” he told him seriously, as firm an order as any he’d given him during the war. A scent of new wool and used leather caught him and he listened to the tentative footsteps in the dirt outside. JD.

Chris leaned in. “You ain’t leaving me with that stray cat of yours.”

************

>   
>  _The desert swept through the tiny town he knew well, as it had so many before it. Lives and stones and clapboard buildings were slowly taken by the chaos as Josiah watched. It wasn’t surprising—wasn’t even that uncommon. Civilization only lasted as long as there were civilized people._
> 
> _The dust in the distance swirled about itself, in opposition to the sands. It built, slowly, reluctantly, gathering dust devils and sucking them in to become part of a larger whole. Once built, the whirlwind moved with frightening speed, wiping the chaos from the valley, leaving only the town behind, unburied now and safe and untouched._
> 
> _And the dust whirled quietly to itself, separating and joining back, but always hovering close..._

Josiah slid comfortably from the dream into a darker cave than he’d fallen asleep in. A very small fire had been built while he slept, and his old bones thanked whoever'd done it.

“You awake, Sanchez?”

Chris’s voice was concerned, and Josiah looked up to see the man crouched beside him, night having fallen outside while he slept. Larabee held a plate of corn and beans. "You were rambling again," he said, and Josiah was amused to see that the soldier wasn't sure anymore whether that was a bad thing. "You with me now?"

“I am if that’s for me,” he replied easily, sitting straight from his slump against the wall. Ezra had rolled over at some point, now facing the cave opening, but he didn’t look to be waking any time soon.

Chris handed over the plate and settled himself on the ground, staring at Ezra for a long moment. “Looks a lot less dire than those kids made him out to be,” he said finally.

“He’ll be annoying you again before long, don’t you worry. He’s simply paying his punishment for a good deed,” Josiah replied around his dinner. Lord, he was hungry.

“Aren’t we all?” Chris bit back quietly. “Buck’s fever’s up,” he offered to Josiah’s curious look. “Rain ain’t quite sure what to do with him, and the wound already smells of…” He shrugged. “Guess I’m wishing Nathan hadn’t done so many good deeds himself today.”

Josiah smiled, safe in the certainty that they would emerge from this night seven men strong. “Sure has made sitting on this cold floor a whole lot more comfortable, though,” he remarked, patting his well-healed leg.

Chris gave him a glare, but Josiah had seen worse. Some from Chris, actually. “You’re a damn strange man, Josiah Sanchez,” he said finally, once he saw he wasn’t going to get the response he wanted.

“Seems to be a lot of that going around.” Josiah chuckled as he got a small grin out of the other man. The grin turned a little evil as Ezra grunted discontentedly in his sleep and rolled back toward the wall, protesting the noise.

“He might wish he’d spent less time sleeping once he finds out I gave the gold back to Tastanagi.” Ezra growled something Josiah couldn’t hear, but Chris snorted and replied to it. “You’ll have to open your eyes to aim, Standish.” Another growl and Chris grinned at Josiah. “Says it ain’t worth waking up to kill me over less gold than he’s already got in his head.”

Josiah patted Standish on the shoulder. “Like I said, there’s a lot of strange going around.”

And he hoped his dream meant it would stay close to home for a while.

********

Ezra and Josiah stumbled to the sitting area in the center of the village around midafternoon the next day and took a couple of seats on a log, smiling in relief like they were sitting on thrones. JD watched the gambler settle his head in his hands, sighing heavily.

“You okay, Ezra?” JD asked him. He looked pretty good, actually, considering what he’d been like yesterday, curled up and twitching in that cave. Sure as heck looked better than Buck…

“Well on my way to recovering, Mr. Dunne,” Ezra replied, so proper. He lifted his head and squinted toward Nathan’s tent, his eyes mere slivers, as they had been the whole time. “How is Buck?”

JD didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He’d gone in and seen Buck yesterday, like Josiah had told him, but he just looked so _bad_... And this morning, Chris had been grim, and Rain had been whispering with the old lady that had been looking after everybody while Nathan was sleeping, stealing looks at JD himself, like they were figuring out what to tell him.

He didn’t need them to tell him anything. He’d seen death before, they all seemed to forget. When he snuck a glimpse of Buck this morning, he’d been hot and gray and still, just like Mama was before she died…

Ezra sighed again at his silence and put his head back in his hands, and Josiah stood with a huge crack of his bones, touching JD absently on the shoulder as he headed to the tent.

Normally, JD could talk a person’s ear off—that’s what everyone always said, anyway—but he was out of words. He’d known Buck for no time at all, but he really wasn’t sure he could stand losing someone again so soon. Someone important like that.

“I take it Mr. Larabee is in with him?” Ezra asked finally, once the silence between them grew thick and painful.

JD picked up Buck’s hat from where he’d been keeping watch over it, like if he kept it long enough, Buck might live for him to give it back. The villagers were working around them, trying to reclaim their lives. He should be helping, and he had been for a while, but…

Ezra had asked a question, hadn’t he? Oh yeah. Chris. “I think he and Vin are helping… you know—burying the bodies?”

They’d be burying Buck soon. He held in the desire to rip apart the kettle on its stand over the cold firepit before him, but the whole metal rig still wobbled and clanged without him putting a hand on it. Ezra looked up in alarm at the sound—which was right about the time that JD realized the gambler’s eyes were so bloodshot that the whites were solid red against the green of the centers, the pupils tiny little pinholes of black.

“Jesus, Ezra—”

“ **JOHN DUNNE!** Get in this tent!”

Josiah’s bellow shook JD to his core, followed as it was by a call for Chris. The old Indian lady shuffled in through the flap Rain held open for a second. JD spun to his feet with Buck’s hat still in his hands and the whole kettle and frame fell to pieces from the turmoil in his mind. Ezra pulled himself up behind him with a grunt, and JD whipped his gaze back to him, unsure of what to do.

Ezra’s hand on his shoulder was unexpected, the look of concern in those destroyed eyes even moreso. “We’d better go, don’t you think?” he said, squeezing JD in his grip to let him know he wouldn’t let him face this death alone—not this time. “I don’t believe it’s wise to cross a man like Josiah.”

Probably not, but JD couldn’t get his feet to start moving until he saw Chris and Vin heading toward the tent from the other side of the village. Vin wasn’t wearing a shirt, just his duster, and the night-black feathers at the points of his wings stuck out the bottom, the tawny ones a little shorter, like a second fringe on the coat. Chris was sweating, his shirt sleeves rolled up and his face grim.

Ezra pushed him forward. “Come on.”

He couldn’t lift the tent flap himself, too afraid of what he’d see. Had to have Ezra do it. God damn, he couldn’t do _anything_ right!

“Hey, kid…” The voice was tired and worn and instantly recognizable. “If you're not going to wear that hat, then I'll take it back.”

JD looked stupidly down at the hat in his hands, then up at the cot he’d been avoiding. Buck was lying there looking at him, a smile on his face. A real, honest-to-God smile on his lively grinning face. Sure he was pale and sickly and slick with sweat, but he was _alive_!

“Buck?” he asked, not believing his eyes. Chris sat on one side of the cot, Nathan—looking rocky and exhausted himself—sat on the other, and Josiah, Vin, and the village women stood off to the side, watching. “Gosh, Buck, you look awful.”

Ezra laughed behind him, softly—like it hurt his head to do it—and Vin and Chris did too. Buck glared at Chris for a brief second before turning a grin on JD himself.

“Well now, son,” he said, already scolding, dang it! “That’s damn near impossible.”

“Impossible or not, you ain’t ready to leave that bed anytime soon,” Nathan warned him. He really did look bad—they both did. “I got the infection taken care of, but healing that artery is gonna take—”

“Energy you do not have,” Rain put in sternly.

Nathan sighed, though everyone could see she was right, And Josiah just crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow, daring Nathan to argue. The black man looked like he was ready to sleep for a week and he’d already been sleeping a whole day.

“I’m starving, actually,” he said sheepishly. He looked up and made eyes at Rain, and she made ‘em back. “Now you mention it.” He studied each of them in the tent, and it looked like he was trying to list in his mind what he had to fix first. JD wondered what it must be like for the healer. Nathan must have been thinking it was all on him to fix everybody, just because he had that gift.

“You doing okay, Ezra?” Nathan asked as he pushed himself to his feet, Rain standing close and holding his arm. “God, your eyes—”

“I am aware, Mr. Jackson,” Ezra growled. There wasn’t the anger that JD would have expected, though. Just crankiness. Buck looked at Ezra sidelong, like there was something weirder than those eyes of his going on. “I rarely choose to be seen in public so soon after such an overindulgence, but Mr. Sanchez insisted.”

Wow. If Ezra had glared at JD like that, with his eyes all red and evil-looking...? But Josiah just shrugged and came up on Nathan’s other side. Taking care of him. “Figured it was better than holing up in a cave for a week.”

Ezra sniffed. “The _cave_ was _dark_ ,” he said pointedly. “And cool.” He nodded to Nathan and Josiah as the old man led Jackson from the tent, something less mean and angry about his eyes when he looked at the healer, even evil as they were right now.

“You rest up, then,” Nathan told him, sensing the change himself, though he didn't appear sure what to make of it. “You look like your head’s still hurting some,” he said cautiously. “Got some tea that might help it.”

Ezra looked a little green. “I believe tea might be the most I could keep down, Mr. Jackson,” he said, heading for the empty cot next to Buck’s. He curled up like a cat and looked like he was asleep in seconds.

Once Rain and Josiah took Nathan to get his food, it was like some sort of signal to the rest of them, and they all headed out. Chris clapped a hand on Buck’s uninjured arm. “You mind Nathan, yeah?” He smirked as he stood up. “Seem to remember you ain’t the best at following doctor’s orders.”

“Get out of here, old man,” Buck growled good naturedly. “Maybe find a stream? Bath might not be the worst idea.”

Chris just kept walking, leaving JD alone with Buck.

Who was _alive_.

“You don’t have to look so damned surprised, kid,” Buck said quietly. “Been through worse than this, I can tell you.”

JD shook his head, the image of Buck in the dawn, gray and wasting, stuck in his mind. “Didn’t seem like it.” It hadn’t even been just how he’d looked… “Chris was worried,” he murmured, though he hadn’t meant to speak. That had scared him, that something could move a man like Chris Larabee so profoundly.

Buck chuckled. “You all seem to think old Chris is some sort of dark bird of vengeance,” he said, a fond smile on his face. “He’s a damn sight softer than he lets on. ‘Specially when it comes to family.” His eyes took JD in and his face never changed. “Speaking of, you okay?”

It took a minute for JD to get the point—that Buck already thought of him as family. When he did, he smiled big, sitting in Chris’s chair and taking a deep breath for the first time since he’d stopped Anderson from killing the man before him. Since the thing he'd thought made him a freak had actually saved a life...

“Yeah, Buck,” he replied warmly. “I’m fine.”

*********  
To be continued….

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DONE! DONE DONE DONE!
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading and commenting and liking it and WOW, this has been a ton of fun! 
> 
> But we're done now. Sorry. I certainly don't have at least three other stories in my head. Nope.
> 
> I hope some of the rest of you have some, too, hint hint.

Turned out it took more than a week for the seven men to leave the village. Chris supposed he should be glad he hadn’t found _actual_ hired guns, who might demand a bonus for work above and beyond.

Vin was gliding cautiously through the air by that second night, though he admitted it was sore and slow going. Nathan had given him a poultice to bring down the swelling in his flying wrist, but the hunter was still skittish about showing his wings, so he probably didn’t use it as much as he should. Nathan threw up his hands and let him be until he could focus on learning more about how the wing worked so he could heal it up better.

It was two more days after that before anyone could look Standish in the eye without flinching. Except, of course, the young villagers who flocked around him as soon as he could walk outside without squinting. Cold Wind’s “fire eyes” were fascinating. And if it got the gambler out of more than his fair share of the hard labor he seemed to avoid like the plague, he was clearly not complaining.

Of course, neither were the village adults, who saw immediately that Mr. Ezra could get their children to do more work than they could. Chris just shook his head, still wondering what the hell he’d been thinking bringing that one on board. Though watching Akando help carry stones across the valley, his gunshot arm healed up and healthy thanks to Nathan, he figured it was almost worth it.

Another day, and Nathan was finally leaving his tent for more than food and bodily functions. Resting when he had to and pushing himself too damn hard, he’d healed what he could of what was left, though Chris noticed that he left Hettie Mae to her double vision and pounding head. He’d set the gash in her forehead to healing, but left the rest, saying she’d be fine after some rest. Wasn’t a surprise that he didn’t even bother to offer anything more than a pain-killing tea to Standish, but it _was_ different to see the gambler actually take it and say thank you.

Maybe Imala wasn’t the only one to learn a lesson in tolerance.

The village was coming back to life, and none of Anderson’s men had been seen since Corcoran had rounded them up and set off for home—or at least somewhere not here—with Anderson and the other dead piled, shrouded, in the wagon they’d brought the cannon in. Death in, death out, and death back in again. It was the way war worked, and Chris was glad to see that one done with.

Almost.

The battle wasn’t truly over until five days after the final shot, when Buck stepped out into the sunshine, professing hunger and looking nearly himself, if a little slower than normal and with his arm in a sling. Nathan had been careful with him and one of the Seminole women who’d been shot in the belly, healing them both in slow stages so Buck wouldn’t start bleeding again and the woman might have a hope of children in her future.

Watching Nathan, driven by a compulsion to heal more than a calling, reminded him of Peg, which reminded him of… too damn many things. There were times he cursed the years he’d had. Times he wished he had never let his anger at his father and his dissatisfaction with life on the farm drive him to adventure in Texas.

When you were hip-deep in mud and blood with cannons bearing down on you, life on the farm seemed pretty damn perfect.

“Well, now, I didn’t mean nothing by it,” he heard Buck stammer in that charming way of his. “Just being friendly. We’re all friends here now, ain’t we?”

And then there were times like this.

Chris smirked as Buck sauntered slowly away from whatever confrontation he’d been having and made his way to the log next to Chris’s at one of the small fires just outside the village proper. The sun was going down, and the people had cause to take a break after another long day.

The last of the graves had been dug three days ago, and the official mourning would be done tomorrow evening. Chris and Vin would be gone by dawn.

“They can still string you up, you know, Buck?” he said quietly. “Sure you want to give up that new chance at life so easily?”

“Ah hell, Chris, you know me,” Buck replied, the comment sliding off his back as usual. “Just having some fun. New chance ain’t worth much without a little fun, right?”

“I reckon not,” Chris allowed.

“Speaking of new chances,” Buck said pointedly, looking out into the falling night. “I figure you and Vin’ll be moving on soon?”

Damn the man. “Figure so.” It should have felt wrong—to move on without Buck. To leave him behind when they’d spent most of Buck’s grown life on the trail together, but…

“I’m glad.”

Chris looked up at him, disbelieving. But there was clear sincerity mixed in with the sadness in Buck’s eyes. “Come on, old man. You didn’t think we were going tour the west together forever.” He sighed. “He’s a good man, Chris, but he’s got a fear in him and... “ He grinned big. “Well, hell, you’ve always been good at handling other people’s fears.”

“But not my own,” Chris returned, knowing that was the gist of the statement, spurred by what happened in Parkerstown. He _was_ scared, he guessed. Scared he’d live forever. Scared he wouldn’t. Scared he’d take too damn many other people with him when he went.

Maybe… Maybe being whatever Erskine and Peg had seen in him—the Leader, not the Soldier—was the way to make it through the tomorrows. They wouldn’t be endless. Anderson had taught him that, though he guessed he already knew.

“You could come with us,” he offered, thinking Vin wouldn’t mind, and if he did, Buck would know it and wouldn’t say yes.

Buck was silent a long spell. “Ain’t sure I’ll say yes this time, Chris.” He chuckled at the surprise that Chris knew only showed in his soul. Buck looked across the fire and over to where Ezra and JD were just parting ways, JD laughing and happy. Buck couldn’t hear it, but they were talking about ways Ezra could’ve used JD’s trick instead of his own all these years. “I reckon that kid is me, huh?” he said gently. “All these years, I’ve had no idea why you kept me around, and I’m sure he’ll be asking himself the same question if he survives his own stupid, but…”

Chris let the silence between them just be as they watched JD head for his bedroll, because Buck would know exactly what he was feeling, and telling the younger man how proud he was would only start Buck off on a verbal smokescreen, designed to hide himself from himself.

It was the one secret Chris kept from Buck; that he knew exactly what the whore’s son thought of himself. Buck was the only one with such a low opinion, Chris was sure.

“Hope he ain’t as much trouble as you’ve been all these years,” he said finally.

“Me?” Buck said incredulously, true to form. “I’ve been nothing short of astounding!”

“You know that word doesn’t have to be positive,” Ezra said, walking up out of the darkness and taking a seat across the fire. Chris had smelled him coming but hadn’t bothered to remark. It was funny how the silver smelled even when he kept it in. Not as much as when he was invisible, but there. Like a marker.

“Now what is that supposed to mean?” Buck asked, cranky and loving it.

“There’s astoundingly slow-witted,” Ezra began. “Astoundingly dense. Astoundingly loud—”

“Astoundingly sick of the train of this conversation,” Josiah put in, sitting next to Buck. He smelled like fresh-turned earth; fresh graves or planted cropland. Always. Chris had no idea if it was a smell that was in his nose or in his mind. Josiah was contrary that way.

“Astoundingly in need of a drink!” Buck said, grinning at the old man, who happened to have a bottle in his hand. It was passed over, and Buck drank a long draught before sighing. “Hell, just about now, I think it’s astounding to be sitting here breathing.”

Chris couldn’t come up with a reply to that. He’d lost a whole hell of a lot of people in his life—people as close to him as Buck, closer even—but he just couldn’t think on what it would have been like to lose again. Not so soon after Sarah and Adam.

“Our Mr. Tanner has been absent this evening,” Ezra said, taking his flask out and sharing in the drinking. “I trust nothing’s amiss?”

“Wing’s hurting him, I think,” Chris replied quietly. “He’s got himself a place up on the ridge where he can sleep without folding up.”

Buck snorted. “God damn, it’s a hell of a world, isn’t it?” he mused. “Don’t matter how many years I’ve known you, or the stories you’ve told, but Chris, really—a man with wings, hiding out in his nest?” He chuckled. “Foolish of him, really,” he added. “Seems there are at least a few women here wouldn’t mind nesting up there with him.”

Chris smirked, clamping down tight on his feelings. “Didn’t say he was alone.” Though he had no idea one way or the other.

Ezra sighed and drank again. “And now I know far more about Mr. Tanner than I’d ever want to.” He rose, stiff and awkward suddenly. “I believe I must say my goodbyes, gentlemen,” he said quietly. “I’ll be off in the morning.” He looked around at the houses that had been rebuilt. The children playing safely by the fires. “We appear to have accomplished the goal we set out to, yes?” It was actually a question, strangely, directed at Chris.

He grinned. “You did good, Ezra,” he told him, seeing Buck smirk stupidly at his side when Ezra’s eyes widened at the praise. “It’s been a pleasure.”

“Likewise, Mr. Larabee,” Ezra said seriously, though it took him a second to find his voice.

“You’ll want to lay in some supplies,” Josiah said, rising as well. “I’m headed back to Four Corners myself. Wouldn’t mind a bit of company.”

Ezra nodded, still seeming unsure of himself. “I would have assumed you and Nathan would be riding together.”

Josiah smiled softly and looked toward the main fire in front of the meeting hall, where Rain and Nathan sat close. “Nathan has his own path, my friend.”

Buck’s grin turned randy. “Well deserved it is, too.” He looked up at both men. “Was a hell of a ride, boys,” he told them truly. “The one thing I won’t miss is your godawful snoring, Josiah.”

“And being shot at,” Josiah lobbed back.

“Well, yeah, that of course.” Chris watched the man’s gaze roam the village, watched a satisfied smile take up residence. “I reckon we should all be moving on,” he said. “Leave these people to their homes.”

Chris agreed. They’d done what they could, which had turned out to be a hell of a lot. But ultimately, every person’s life was his own. And only one of the seven of them had a life here in this village.

Ezra and Josiah faded into the night, Buck following not long after, and Chris sat by his fire, waiting for dawn with more contentment than he’d known in a long while.

********

Vin wasn’t the least surprised to see everyone packing up when he looked down from the bluff as dawn broke across the valley. Hell, even the villagers seemed to know it was time for the seven of them to be on their way, the children moving about even earlier than they’d been doing in the time they were here, the adults already cooking up a morning meal and seeing to the houses they were still rebuilding.

Buck was already hassling JD, which made Vin smile. He reckoned Buck’d got himself a hell of a project in that boy, and figured it would be damn worth it in the end. He hadn’t been lying to JD—it took a good soul to throw those guns away instead of turning them on their owners. There was a light in that boy, and Vin hoped Buck could get it shining proper-like.

Josiah was sitting quietly on a rock next to his horse, smiling and sage and reminding Vin of every wise man he ever knew. He looked up as Ezra stumbled a bit as he headed to pack up his horse, and then laughed loud by the look of it, at whatever the gambler had said.

Ezra was moving slow, but it was probably more sleep than pain that plagued him today. His headache had gone he’d said, and Vin had already noticed his temperature going back to normal directly after the battle. Must’ve had something to do with the way he wore himself out being invisible so much.

Chris was looking at him, which was also to be expected. He’d left his saddlebags and such packed and ready down by the horses, figuring to fly a little this morning. His flying wrist still ached, but he could take a fair downstroke now without wanting to scream. It would be good to get in the air again.

But Chris was waiting.

He sighed, not seeing Nathan and realizing the black man meant to stay here, at least for a while. With a girl like Rain around, Vin might have, too, if he was him.

He wadded his shirt and stuck it in his belt, tied his gun down tight, and stepped to the edge of the bluff. He could clearly see all of them down there. Chris was watching him without staring, Ezra had seen him there, but was busy with his own affairs, Imala and his wife and another woman were looking up at him, the woman saying something to someone else, and suddenly more people had turned their heads his way.

Too damn many people. He’d been on display before, in Tascosa, chained up, his wings shackled so they couldn’t be closed but couldn’t be used; stared at and poked and prodded and made a freak and—

His eyes sought safety and his gaze landed on Chris.

 _Come on down, Vin,_ Chris’s lips said. _It’s okay._

And suddenly, it was. Damned if Vin knew how, but it was really okay. He spread his wings, the left one still aching and awkward, and dove into the air, gliding softly and carefully to the valley below, far enough from the horses not to spook them.

“Soaring Soul!” Tastanagi called, approaching him as Chris did. Vin sighed at the name, but resigned himself to it, while he folded his wings away, the left one still an unsightly bulge under his shirt as he slipped the clothing on. “Come. I must show you something.”

Vin shot Chris a questioning look, but got only confusion back, so the two of them fell in line behind the old man, who lead them across the valley floor to the graveyard that had seen far too much activity of late.

“Why’re you bringing us here?” Vin asked, trying not to look at the stands of wood that served as headstones.

“I have brought you here to give you my condolences,” Tastnagi said grimly, leading them to the back edge of the newly turned section of graves.

“We should be doing that for you, Tastanagi,” Chris said, confused. But then he stopped dead in front of a grave Vin didn’t remember seeing before and smiled.

“You’ll be missed, Tanner,” he said softly.

Vin looked at the marker, and while he couldn’t recognize more than an handful of words, there were two he knew well: Vin Tanner. He looked up at the old Seminole. “Why?”

“It would be foolish to search for a winged man who is already dead, don’t you think?” Tastanagi said. “We owe you all our lives.”

Vin grinned, feeling a weight lift off of him. “The least you could do was take mine.”

*********

“Mr. Ezra! Mr, Ezra!”

Akando, Jirna, and Ola came running up to him, all expecting and receiving a warm embrace. They were truly wonderful children. He might miss them.

“Are you really leaving?” Jirna asked, devastated as only a ten-year-old can be. It rang uncomfortably close to Ezra’s memories of his mother’s numerous departures, and he shook off the similarities.

“I must, my young brave,” he said, kneeling to be at a better level with them all. “But I leave the village in your care,” he told them sternly. “I shall expect you to watch over it.”

“Ezra?” Akando asked seriously. “Can I come?”

“A brave warrior like you?” Ezra replied, horrified. “As I’ve said, you’ve got to stay here and protect the village.” Akando pouted, but nodded his agreement. Ezra smiled. “Now, you remember what I taught you?”

“Never draw to an inside straight,” the boy replied dutifully.

Ola smacked him in the arm. “No, silly,” she corrected, eyes shining. “Always be willing to fight for what’s right.” She looked up at him, clearly misinterpreting his shock for censure. “RIght, Cold Wind?” She added uncertainly.

Was that what he had taught them? Really? Ezra shook himself and smiled, gathering them in for a massive hug. “Just so, young lady,” he murmured. “Just so.”

Nathan appeared from the direction of the tent that was no longer used for the wounded, his medical kit and saddlebags weighing him down. It was strange how Ezra saw him in such a different light now. He was certainly not going to allow the man to lay hands on him, and the truth of the South would likely always make them wary of each other, but Nathan… He was just a man, really, wasn’t he?

“I thought you were staying,” Josiah said from his perch on his rock, smiling wide. “What changed your mind?”

Lord, were they going to play that game again? If Nathan was dreaming of birds as well, Ezra might just stock up in Eagle’s Bend instead.

Nathan’s reply was a comfort. “It sure wasn’t your damn birds, old man,” he groused playfully. He looked back at Rain, who smiled and looked content with his leaving. “I reckon Rain’s got some healing to do that I can’t help with, and…” He shrugged, as if to say he hadn’t a clue why he was all packed up and ready to go.

Ezra cleared his throat, ushering the trio of children back to their chores. “Are you up to riding with a, uh, good old Southern boy?” he asked, watching Nathan saddle his horse. Whatever he’d come to think of Nathan, the fact of the matter was that an ex-slave would have no desire to ride with a Confederate soldier.

And it appeared Nathan was thinking something similar. Except that, after a long moment of tying down his gear, the black man turned a tentative smile on him. “Reckon you’ve shown your colors,” he said quietly. “Long as you don’t want me to play poker with you.”

Ezra pulled himself up into his saddle with a grin. “Good Lord, whatever _else_ would we do?”

Chris and Vin walked toward the group of them, Tastanagi with them and smiling.

“We’ll leave you now,” Chris said, as if it were some solemn handing over of sovereignty. “You keep that gold, in case you need it the next time.”

Damn that gold anyway. Lord, he wasn’t even going to get paid for all of this!

“The next time,” Tastanagi said sagely, “we will welcome our enemies with great hospitality.”

“I think you mean hostility,” Chris replied, but almost as if he was waiting for the end of a joke.

Tastanagi didn’t disappoint. “No. Hospitality. I will even open the doors of my home to them.”

The door to the building that had indeed once been the chief’s home opened, and the old cannon stared them all in the face. Ezra had inspected it and the cannonballs they’d retrieved after the barrage. Anderson hadn’t left much ordinance for it, but they’d be able to get off a few good shots. He’d spent some time discussing the mechanics of the weapon with a few of the men, and they understood the basic functions of loading and aiming—far more than he himself had when he fired his first round.

Chris smiled wryly. “That will do it.”

“Know that you will always be welcome in our village,” the old man said, looking around to include the rest of them. “All of you.”

Ezra tipped his hat, as did Buck and Josiah. JD and Nathan simply nodded.

Chris and Vin mounted their horses and Ezra almost laughed. They’d all said their goodbyes last night. They’d been ready and content to go their separate ways… And yet here they were, leaving as the unit they’d arrived.

Well no, he thought, as they moved out, seven abreast. Not the same as that. They were… different. He smirked. Yes, different in Buck Wilmington’s use of the term, of course, but also different in the way they saw each other. And perhaps themselves.

“Where’re you headed?” JD asked him. “I mean—I know you were heading to Four Corners to stock up, but after that?”

Ezra sighed. “I’m not entirely sure, Mr. Dunne,” he replied. “I had originally thought Denver, but…” He grinned. “I expect I’ll head wherever the wind takes me.”

Josiah chuckled, but didn’t speak.

“It’s always worked for me,” Vin said happily.

“Yeah, but you can fly,” Buck shot back. He looked over at JD. “Just like this boy here!”

“Shut up, Buck!” JD whined. He perked up immediately. “I was thinking Texas!”

“No.” Chris and Vin said it together, with such fervency, it was disconcerting.

“Texas ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, kid,” Vin explained without explaining a damn thing. “Leastwise for people like us.”

“And what exactly are ‘people like us’?” Ezra wanted to know. In the worst possible way.

“Whirlwinds,” Josiah replied, a crazy smile on his face and an almost joyful gleam in his eye. “Whirlwinds that may fly apart, but will always spin back together.”

“Well, now, that’s just depressing, Mr. Sanchez,” he said coldly.

Still, he couldn’t deny that Four Corners held a certain charm. Surely it couldn’t hurt to stay.

For just a little while…

*****  
the end

 

 

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, YOU ASK?

Well, now that’s entirely up to you.

What happened in Parkerstown? “Massacre at Myersville,” Josiah? Do tell! Wonder what it was like for Vin in Tascosa?

THEN WRITE!

This AU is open to all. The bible can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6179227), and if you really want to ask me a question about anything in the universe, that’s the place to do it. I encourage people to write whatever the heck you want, though, beyond what I’ve written there.

I cannot WAIT to see what you all come up with!

Thank you for sticking with me in this journey. Please take it another step, won’t you?

Deannie

 

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, some dialogue has been pilfered from the pilot episode of The Magnificent Seven. I hate it when that happens.


End file.
